Strong 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...
CONTINUE READINGThe Economic Impact of AB 32 on California
New study suggests that the economic impact of cutting carbon is modest.
What is the economic impact of California’s climate change regulations? Will they reduce actual emissions or just shift them out-of-state? A new study by Resources for the Future addresses an important part of the puzzle. Reasearchers at RFF modeled the effect of compliance costs of $10/ton or $22/ton of CO2 on highly energy-intensive industries such as glass bottle manufacturing, poultry processing, paperboard mills, and steel manufacturing. The models assume that...
CONTINUE READINGTrump, Sanders Voters and Climate Change
If you need even one reason to vote for Clinton, climate change ought to suffice
I don't pretend to understand the allure of Donald Trump. I am an unabashed supporter of Hillary Clinton. I appreciate that many people I know and respect are Bernie Sanders supporters. I am hoping that, once Clinton officially becomes the Democratic candidate for President, Sanders supporters will work hard to elect Clinton as President, even if their motive for doing so is to defeat Donald Trump. Staying home on election day or voting for Trump to stir thin...
CONTINUE READINGReinventing Parks & Rec.
We need to protect city parks, not just rural wilderness.
"The few green havens that are public parks" is a phrase from the Supreme Court's opinion in the Overton Park case. The case involved a plan to build a highway through the middle of a major park in Memphis. The Court put a heavy burden on the government to justify the project: "The few green havens that are public parks were not to be lost unless there were truly unusual factors present in a particular case or the cost or community disruption resulting from alterna...
CONTINUE READINGThis April Was the Cruelest Month (Or at Least the Hottest)
Once again, a global temperature record is broken.
For the seventh month in a row, the average global temperature set a new monthly record going back at least 136 years. Rutherford Hayes was President back then, the first electric street light was turned on, and Gladstone beat Disraeli. We've had 24 Presidents since then. In other words, that was a long time ago. As you may recall, 2015 was the warmest year on record, breaking the record set by 2014. This year seems to be on track to break the record again. ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Fines SoCal Gas for Corroded Pipe Casings
The CPUC issued the fine after finding dozens of violations
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a citation for violations of a federal regulation on Southern California Gas Co. (SoCal Gas) totaling $2.25 million. The citation is based on forty-five violations of a federal regulation requiring that operators "take prompt remedial action to correct any deficiencies indicated by" external corrosion monitoring. According to the May 3, 2016 Investigation Report filed by the CPUC Safety and Enforcement Division (S...
CONTINUE READINGIs Protecting Public Health Now a Partisan Issue?
Congress's failure to deal with the Zika threat is a symptom of a bigger problem.
Congress seems to be unable to come up with funding for an effort to combat the zika virus. Instead, congressional leaders told the government to use existing funding, so it has been forced to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from fighting ebola. (You remember that Congress was completely frenzied about the risk of ebola in 2014-15. But Ebola is so last year.) There are efforts to forge a compromise, but no one knows if they will succeed. Part of what's...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Justice and Sustainability
Over two billion people lack access to modern energy sources.
Energy justice is an unfamiliar concept to most people, but it addresses a crucial problem. A new book by Lakshman Guruswamy addresses some of the key facts: About a third of the world's population -- between 2 and 2.5 billion people -- primarily rely on household burning of wood, coal, or other materials like dung for cooking. The price they pay is great, he tells us: "indoor air pollution that is presently responsible for millions of premature deaths . . . due to ...
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