Research? We Don’t Need No Stinking Research!
Yes, this post is about the House GOP. How did you guess? Lamar Smith, chair of the House science committee, has opened an unprecedented investigation into five NSF research projects, demanding copies of peer reviews and other information in a letter to the NSF director. I looked up the abstracts for the five projects that Smith is investigating. They make it clear that the GOP is trying to chill certain types of research. In authoritarian regimes, researchers have ...
CONTINUE READINGA Strong OIRA Pick
I was traveling and missed the news about the selection of Howard Shelanski to replace Cass Sunstein as head of OIRA, the White House office that oversees government regulations. Or, regulatory czar, in simpler terms. He's a terrific pick. Howard was on the faculty here when I first came to Berkeley and got to know him over lunches at Steve's Korean Barbecue, a student dive near the law school. He has four traits that augur well for his new position: he's smart, ...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Justice, Metrics & California’s San Joaquin Valley
This week the California Environmental Protection Agency issued a disturbing but worthwhile report on environmental justice issues in California. That report confirms what many environmental justice advocates and state residents already assumed: that the San Joaquin Valley is--far and away--the most environmentally-challenged region of the state. According to the CalEPA press release accompanying the report, the study is "the nation’s first comprehensive statewide env...
CONTINUE READINGSome Good News on California’s Water Planning
Last week at this time, I objected to an Associated Press piece showing how California has left unspent nearly $500 million worth of funds for water projects. At the end of article, there was a little note saying, "oh yes; experts think that California will need nearly $39 billion to update its water infrastructure." Talk about burying your lede! And I said so. One of the great things about Legal Planet is the quality of its readers. Shortly thereafter, I hear...
CONTINUE READINGOT 2012 Supreme Court Scorecard
This Supreme Court Term features a number of environmental cases. We're now about three-quarters of the way through the Term, so I thought it might be helpful to update my earlier post about the Court's environmental agenda. I've also added links to postings about the cases. My impression is that the Court is interested in environmental law to the extent that it seems to impinge on the rights of individual property owners. But the Court doesn't seem take much of a...
CONTINUE READINGGoing Global with CBA
A new book by Michael Livermore and Richard Revesz discusses what they consider the growing use of CBA outside of the United States, where it got its start as a tool for assessing regulations. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book concerns developing countries. Use of CBA in developing countries poses special challenges. Valuation data is rarely available for those countries, so regulatory benefits have to be extrapolated from studies of developed countrie...
CONTINUE READINGA Funny Way to Celebrate Earth Day
My home institution of UCLA has decided to commemorate Earth Day in a clear and bold manner: it has banned tobacco on campus, starting on -- well, today. The Westwood campus is the first UC to implement the ban, following a call from President Mark Yudof to go smoke-free across the 10-campus system by 2014. “We’re very proud we’re the first,” UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block said. The campus and its students “are setting an example.” The Earth Day launch dat...
CONTINUE READINGEarth Day perspectives
I really like this post over at Slate giving 15 fun facts about the Earth on Earth Day. My favorite is number 14: "If you took all the water on Earth and collected it into a single drop, it would be just less than 1,400 kilometers (860 miles) across." This comes with a neat visual: Have dim memories of learning, long ago, that the earth is 3/4 water? Think again, and click here for a more full discussion. From a policy perspective, these sorts of...
CONTINUE READINGThe Consequences of Carbon Cap & Trade
Behind a firewall, the WSJ has a tough editorial mocking Europe's carbon trading. While I often agree with this page's overall philosophy, this is a case where I sharply disagree with the unsigned authors. As everyone knows, a key part of life is making investment choices while facing uncertainty. Consider a European power plant or cement maker who is getting ready to make a billion dollar investment and the economic facility that will be built is expected to la...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Unspent Water Funds: An Instinct for the Capillary
The AP reports today that California has failed to spend $455 million of federal money for improving the state's water infrastructure, even though many of the state's communities suffer from unclean water. The state has received more than $1.5 billion for its Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund over the past 15 years, but has failed to spend a large part of it in a timely manner, according to a noncompliance letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to t...
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