Roger Cohen Has a Lazy Day
I suppose that it's tough writing two 750-word columns each week; that's why the NYT's Roger Cohen decided to rehash his hatchet job on organic foods in today's paper. In a previous column, Cohen ridiculed fans of organic food, pointing to a Stanford study finding that organic foods were no healthier for human beings than conventionally processed foods. That's fair enough, although the real reason to go organic is the health of the planet, not the the health of the hu...
CONTINUE READINGCarmaHeaven?–One way to improve air quality in LA
Los Angelenos are mostly dreading the return of "Carmageddon" this weekend, when a key section of one of our city's main freeway arteries will once again be shut down for construction. But apparently we should be craving the respite from our city's pervasive air pollution. Researchers at UCLA have just posted an analysis of the effect of the last similar closure on local air quality. From UCLA's release (to which all credit is due, or censure, for the CarmaH...
CONTINUE READINGMcMahon versus Murphy – A Senate Race With High Stakes Environmentally
The Connecticut Senate race between Linda McMahon (R) and Chris Murphy (D) has major environmental implications. McMahon vigorously espouses the standard Republican positions on environment and energy. But Murphy stands out among Democratic Senate candidates in swing states because of his especially strong commitment on the environment. His House website emphasizes that commitment: Our environmental policies are about more than making sure we have clean drinkin...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Drives Anti-Regulatory Public Opinion?
Distrust of regulation has surged recently, but in a one-sided and somewhat surprising way. Here's a graph from Gallup: The Gallup folks speculate that this is due to the GOP reaction to regulatory actions under Obama. That does not seem to fit the graph. You'll notice that the GOP antagonism toward regulation began under Bush at about the time that the Democrats took control of Congress. It has built ever since then, and it continued to build after 2010 when n...
CONTINUE READINGWhat foie gras and low carbon fuels have in common
Many of you may have heard of California's ban on foie gras. The ban was signed into law in 2004 by that notorious hippie, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but did not take effect until 2012. Fewer of you may be aware of the current litigation over California's low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program. Litigation concerning both the LCFS program and the foie gras ban advance a rather interesting legal question: can California regulate a product based not on its physical pr...
CONTINUE READINGGenetically Modified Foods: a Controversial New Study and Prop. 37
Genetically modified organisms are in the news these days for two big reasons. First, California voters will decide in November whether to require the labeling of foods that have been genetically engineered. And second, a new study -- subject to significant criticism even from some who advocate labeling -- found that rats fed with genetically modified corn developed tumors at a higher rate than rats fed with non-GMO corn. The study has led Russia to ban the import ...
CONTINUE READING“Green Status” Through Vegan Eating
More and more micro economists are writing papers on social networks and how we learn from others. For example, here is a well known paper about pineapple farmers in Ghana learning from each other. In your life who is "influential"? If your mom makes a suggestion, do you embrace it? If President Obama endorses a toothpaste, do you use it? If the quarterback at your University suggests using a different hair gel, do you follow? In Los Angeles, we follow what t...
CONTINUE READINGRevisiting the Origin of the Administrative State — Not a 20th Century Invention After All
Every institution seems to have a creation myth of some kind. Many people think that the federal bureaucracy was a creation of the New Deal, which deviated from the Framers' vision of small government. More sophisticated people realize that the administrative state began in the late 19th century with the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In a recent book, Jerry Mashaw shows that both views are wrong. Bureaucracy and administrative procedure are almost ...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy and Environment in the Wisconsin Senate Race
The Wisconsin Senate race pits Tammy Baldwin (D) against Tommy Thompson (R) -- Tammy versus Tommy, as the newspapers are fond of saying. In the environmental area, the two are as different as day and night. Baldwin champions environmental protection, while Thompson is in love with fossil fuels. Tommy Thompson's position on energy essentially amounts to "drill, baby, drill." His website calls for legislative action to "open areas of shoreline in the Atlantic, Paci...
CONTINUE READINGMayor Bloomberg and the Granny State, or: When is a Soda Ban Not a Ban?
Yes, that's right: granny state, not -- as conservatives are wont to call it -- the nanny state. Dan's thoughtful post the other day suggested but did not spell out an important theoretical implication of New York City's prohibition on large servings of sugared soft drinks: it represents an almost-classic form of the "nudge," the policy tool advocated by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. As Dan noted, Mayor Bloomberg observed that the soft drink ordinance does not ba...
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