The Death of Deference?
Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted cert. in several cases to hear the following question: “Whether the Environmental Protection Agency unreasonably refused to consider costs in determining whether it is appropriate to regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by electric utilities.” The fundamental issue is whether it was unreasonable for EPA to interpret section 112 to preclude consideration of cost at this particular stage of the regulatory process -- not ...
CONTINUE READINGThe California REDD+ Experience
The ongoing political history of California's initiative to include jurisdictional REDD+ offsets within the cap-and-trade system
Announcing the publication of The California REDD+ Experience, a report written by UCLA's Emmett Institute faculty and published by the Center for Global Development. Six years ago in Los Angeles, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a memorandum of understanding with Governors from Brazil and Indonesia (and also Wisconsin and Illinois), to “coordinate efforts and promote collaboration” on efforts to conserve forests, fight climate change, and encourage sustainable deve...
CONTINUE READINGSan Diego Loses Appeal On Its Weak Transportation Plan
Today 's ruling confirms that the plan failed under CEQA to consider greenhouse gas emissions to 2050
Back in 2011, the San Diego Association of Governments issued a really bad regional transportation plan. These plans must prioritize transportation investments across the metropolitan region for the coming decades and are the basis for receiving state and federal infrastructure dollars. And while most regional transportation plans are usually pretty bad (i.e. favoring highway expansion over core maintenance and transit/biking/walking infrastructure), SANDAG's happene...
CONTINUE READINGWhere Does Air Pollution Come From?
When we think about pollution sources, we tend to picture factories. As it turns out, that's wrong. At least, that's the finding in a very carefully conducted study by UT's David Adelman. He found that industry is not a leading source of air pollution, with two major exceptions. One exception consists of coal-fired power plants (and to a lesser extent industrial boilers). The other exception consists of Houston, which has the greatest concentration of indust...
CONTINUE READINGThe ESA and the Commerce Clause
The federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) is widely known for being the primary law in the United States that focuses on protecting biodiversity, and also for being a “pit bull” of environmental laws that has few exceptions and broad sweep. (For instance, the ESA was a major component of the litigation strategy by environmental groups to end harvesting of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.) But what is less widely known is that there have been a series of...
CONTINUE READINGReaching Across the Aisle?
The safest prediction is that our Democratic President and Republican Congress will not in fact be able to work together. Their present gestures toward cooperation may mean nothing more than a willingness to accept the other side's surrender. But hope springs eternal. Are there areas where common ground exists? That seems nearly impossible on some issues like climate change. But there may be others where, at least in principle, common ground might conceivably b...
CONTINUE READINGU.S.-China Climate Pact and Domestic Politics
Alex Wang and I Consider the Domestic Ramifications in Both the U.S. and China
The news from Beijing this week that the U.S. and China are committing to ambitious goals on climate change is, we think, monumental. No two countries are more important to tackling the problem than the largest carbon emitter over the past two centuries, the U.S., and the largest current emitter, China. While many observers are focusing on the ramifications of the announcement for upcoming international negotiations, we believe that the announcement also has potentia...
CONTINUE READINGSome Unsolicited Advice for Tom Steyer
There were a number of efforts by wealthy individuals and/or Super PACs to affect the midterm election results. Most relevant to this blog, Tom Steyer used tens of millions of his own funds to support candidates that he felt would be more supportive of efforts to address climate change. After the election, the media portrayed Steyer’s efforts as a waste of money: Only a small minority of the candidates Steyer supported were elected, and his efforts to get “climate...
CONTINUE READINGA Ray of Hope [Breaking News]
President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a major deal on climate change this morning. As summarized by the Washington Post, China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged in the far-reaching agreement to cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible. It also set a daunting goal of increasing the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 percent of the country’s energy mix by 2030. Obama announced a target t...
CONTINUE READING“You’re Just Not My Type (of error)”
Most people find statistics off-putting -- who wants to look at a bunch of numbers? And Statistics courses, which are required for students in many majors, are usually viewed as a painful box to check. But when you put aside the numbers and the technicalities, statisticians also have some simple yet powerful concepts. One of them is the distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 errors. I guess you can tell from the less-than-gripping labels why many students don't f...
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