Peering Behind OIRA’s Veil of Secrecy
OIRA is staffed by under-trained, over-worked short-termers.
OIRA is an agency whose functions are as mysterious to most people as its name. It doesn't help much to learn that OIRA stands for Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The phrase "regulatory czars" is more informative. OIRA runs the federal government's regulatory process. Although agencies like EPA are required to have a lot of transparency, not much public information is available about who works at OIRA or what they do. But Greenwire has managed t...
CONTINUE READINGPlain Language, Climate Change, and the Supreme Court
The language of the statute relating to next week's argument is clear -- but there's a fly in the ointment.
The Supreme Court will be hearing argument next week in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA. It's basically a very simple statutory interpretation case, except for two things. First, it's about climate change, and nothing about climate change ever seems to be simple and straightforward. Second, although the language of the statute, prior Supreme Court precedent, and decades of administrative practice support EPA's position, there's a very awkward side-effect that ...
CONTINUE READINGWyoming Wind Power and California Electricity
Supporting renewable energy in Wyoming makes political sense
A company wants to build a lot of wind power in Wyoming. A lot. 3,000 megawatts. The size of three nuclear reactors. And ship all of the power to California. None of it will be used in Wyoming, where electricity primarily comes from coal, and where the state has been strongly resistant to various policies to encourage renewable power, such as renewable portfolio standards. There are some critics of the deal in California, who argue that we should keep “gre...
CONTINUE READINGBerkeley Law Amicus Brief Highlights Benefits of Transit-Oriented Development
Smart growth alternatives would help end the vicious cycle of highway expansion and housing sprawl in San Diego region
Berkeley Law's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) filed an amicus brief last week in a California Court of Appeal case with far-reaching implications for development, transportation, and California's climate goals. The case, Cleveland National Forest Foundation v. San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), challenges the State's first Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy for its failure to properly analyze and mitigate enviro...
CONTINUE READINGProtecting Marine “Wilderness”
A new study shows how to strengthen marine preserves.
The Bush Administration is not remembered fondly by environmentalists, but one important exception came at the beginning of 2009. That's when President Bush created an additional 195,000 square miles of marine reserves, on top of the 140,000 miles he had created previously. Such marine reserves are not unique to the United States, of course. Yet, until now we have not had a good sense of how to make these reserves effective. A new study in Nature helps fill that...
CONTINUE READINGHow Legalizing Marijuana Could Help Fight Climate Change
The link between indoor grow operations and energy data
Now that the two states that just legalized marijuana sent their football teams to the Superbowl this year, it’s clear that the stars are aligning for legalizing marijuana nationwide. Sure, legalizing marijuana makes fiscal, moral, and practical sense, but what about the benefits to the environment? Well, it turns out that even the fight against climate change could potentially be enhanced by making cannabis -- and the grow operations that produce it -- legal. It ...
CONTINUE READINGIt’s Not Waste, It’s An Ecosystem
Letting rivers flow supports ecosystems and people
One thing that droughts in the West provoke are political battles over water. The drought that California is currently in is no exception. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have just passed a bill that would – more or less – exempt farmers in the Central Valley from environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act when it comes to withdrawing water from California rivers for irrigation. Projects to restore free-flowing water to the San Joaquin ...
CONTINUE READINGPine Beetles, Environmental Law, and Climate Change Adaptation
Inflexible laws may be the best response to climate change
Anyone who lives or has visited the Intermountain West over the past decade or so has noticed the devastating impact of a mountain pine beetle epidemic on the pine forests from Arizona and New Mexico all the way up to British Columbia and Alberta. As a result of warmer winter weather because of climate change, mountain pine beetle populations have exploded – not just in numbers, but also in range. Beetles have been found hundreds of miles north of their historic ra...
CONTINUE READINGA Bridge Made of Natural Gas Is a Shaky Thing
When will we start to manage our natural gas resources?
For the last half century, domestic natural gas policy has looked something like this: Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. It is versatile and economical. So, let’s pull it out of the ground and use it as fast as we can. In the last decade, the policy has been appended to include the notion of natural gas as a bridge fuel – in some situations, it emits half as much greenhouse gas as does coal, so let’s use gas as a lower-carbon fuel that can tide us ov...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Flawed Approach to Electric Vehicle Public Charging
Legal settlement to commit $100 million to new charging stations has not been effective
Back in 2000, rolling blackouts descended upon California and eventually cost Governor Gray Davis his job. The crisis was caused by deviant corporate behavior, and one of the companies involved, NRG, finally settled with the state in 2012 for damages related to its conduct. But instead of being punished, the California Public Utilities Commission allowed NRG to commit to spending $100 million on electric vehicle public charging infrastructure, essentially helping the...
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