Ronald Reagan – Environmentalist Governor
Reagan's record in California included major environmental achievements.
It may surprise you to learn this -- it certainly surprised me. But Ronald Reagan has been called “the most environmental governor in California history — protecting wild rivers from dams, preserving a Sierra wilderness by blocking highway builders, creating an air resources board that led to the nation's first auto smog controls.” This may be an exaggeration, but there were some major environmental achievements. Consider this LA Times account of Reagan’s effort ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Irony of a Developing Nation’s Climate Agenda
The challenge of developing and decarbonizing at the same time
Mexico has been busy. Or at least, its energy and environmental ministers have been. Over the last several years, Mexico has held its first auction for renewable energy contracts, opened its energy market to private competitors, and increased its renewable energy capacity by more than thirty times the level in 2008. At the same time, the Environment Ministry recently issued a temporary emergency regulation after the air pollution index in Mexico city surpassed 150, consi...
CONTINUE READINGStatutory Standing After the Spokeo Decision
A non-environmental case opens the door to new arguments about standing.
One of the recurring questions in standing law is the extent to which Congress can change the application of the standing doctrine. A recent Supreme Court opinion in a non-environmental case sheds some light – not a lot, but some – on this recurring question. The Court has made it clear that there is a constitutional core of the doctrine with three elements: a concrete injury in fact, a causal link between the injury and the defendant’s conduct, and a reasonable...
CONTINUE READINGGaming Out Environmental Law: 2017-2019
The heavens or the abyss? Or somewhere in between?
What happens after November? A lot depends on who's the next President, but the congressional elections also matter. Basically, a Trump victory would mean at least a rollback of much of Obama's environmental legacy, and perhaps passage of the current House deregulatory agenda into law. A Clinton victory would be likely to preserve or strengthen the Obama legacy, and could conceivably lead to new climate legislation. Of the two extreme outcomes, enactment of the Ho...
CONTINUE READINGTrump, Clinton, and the Environment
Your Handy Guide to the Differences
Here’s a handy chart comparing Trump and Clinton on environmental and energy issues. I’ve assembled the relevant statements by the candidates below the summary table. Issue Clinton Trump Is climate change real? Yes, an urgent threat. No, it’s a hoax. Support Clean Power Plan? Yes. No. Support Keystone XL pipeline? No. Yes. Drill in Arctic? No. Yes. Support Paris Agreement? Yes. No. F...
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s 2009 Call for Serious Climate Action
No, I'm not making this up.
On the eve of the Copenhagen conference, business leaders published an open letter demanding urgent climate action. The letter was signed by Donald Trump along with Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. Here's some of the language of the letter: "We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today. Please don’t postpone the earth. If we fail to act now, it is scie...
CONTINUE READINGThe Road to Improved Compliance
Enforcement of environmental laws is spotty. But there are ways to change that.I
As I wrote earlier this week, environmental enforcement is not nearly as effective as it should be. EPA and others have been working on finding creative ways of obtaining compliance, often with the help of new technology. One aspect of enforcement that has become clear is the need to focus on small, dispersed sources that may cumulatively cause major problems. EPA has focused its past efforts on the largest non-complying facilities. But EPA has found serious non...
CONTINUE READINGStrong Regs, Spotty Enforcement
Environmental enforcement could use a big boost.
The political debate over regulation tends to focus on the regulations themselves. But enforcing the regulations is just as important. Despite what you might think from the howls of business groups and conservative commentators, the enforcement system is not nearly as strong as it should be. Twenty years after passage of the Clean Water Act, roughly ten thousand discharges still had no permits whatsoever, 12-13% percent of major private and municipal sources were in ...
CONTINUE READINGBush, Nader, and the Lost Years of Climate Policy
Actions by these two very different men set climate policy back eight years.
From 2001 to 2009, the US sat on its hands while the atmosphere filled with carbon. Much of that carbon came from the US itself, at six billion tons per year up to the 2008 crash. The story of how this came to pass is yet to be fully written. It is, in part, a tale of misguided idealism (in the person of Ralph Nader) and of broken promises (by George Bush). The Nader part is familiar. If he had won the 2000 election, Al Gore was guaranteed to take action on climate ch...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Deals Obama Administration Blow in Clean Water Act Case
Supreme Court allows lawsuits early in Clean Water Act permitting process, as Justice Kennedy ominously questions the Act's reach
The Supreme Court today dealt another blow to the Obama administration in a Clean Water Act case. The Court’s unanimous opinion in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., No. 15-290, addressed the finality of an Army Corps “approved jurisdictional determination” (JD) on whether a particular parcel of property contains “waters of the United States” and is therefore subject to Clean Water Act section 404 permitting requirements. Respondents, three pe...
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