Reading the Mary Nichols (carbon) tea leaves
It's undoubtedly dangerous to try to read too much into short media quotes. But Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, is in a better position than most to judge (and to influence) the political winds on the future of the State's cap-and-trade program. Here's her latest public statement on the issue, made during an appearance last week at a climate conference in LA (and reported by KPCC here, with audio, and also by the LA Times here):�...
CONTINUE READINGAEP v. Connecticut oral argument
This morning, the Supreme Court heard 75 minutes of oral argument in AEP v. Connecticut. My fellow blogger, Richard Frank, already gave us a preview of the arguments. SCOTUSblog has a nice recap of what happened this morning. I would just like to highlight a few points from the oral argument. First, the Justices seem hesitant to throw out the public nuisance remedy completely, but are uncomfortable with the complexity of a judicial remedy in this type of case. Justice...
CONTINUE READINGPreviewing the Supreme Court Oral Arguments in AEP v. Connecticut
On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the only environmental case on its docket this Term: American Electric Power v. Connecticut. At issue in this critically important climate change case is whether a coalition of states, New York City and several private land trusts can pursue a federal common law nuisance claim against the owners and operators of massive Midwestern, coal-fired power plants that collectively generate an estimated 650 million tons of...
CONTINUE READINGExplaining EPA’s Authority Under the Clean Air Act to Address Climate Change
In a new white paper by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), Amy Sinden and I try to clear up some misconceptions about climate change and the Clean Air Act. Critics of EPA maintain that the Clean Air Act is somehow an inappropriate tool to address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and that EPA should be prohibited from regulating. It is true that the Clean Air Act was not specifically tailored to the task of curbing GHGs, and that it would undoubtedly be desirable f...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy and Development
Readers of this blog may be interested in a new blog by my ERG colleague Dan Kammen. Dan is currently on leave from Berkeley to head the Clean Tech effort at the World Bank as the Bank's Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Recent subjects range from cook stoves in Africa to renewable energy in Malaysia and climate impacts on your local energy supply. Before going to the Bank, was the co-developer of the Property Assessed Clean Ener...
CONTINUE READINGThe War Against State Environmental Protection
Although much of the attention has been on Congress, states have also seen major budget-cutting efforts, with a disproportionate amount of cuts targeted on state environmental agencies. As the NY Times reports, Governor LePage summed up the animus while defending his program in a radio address. “Maine’s working families and small businesses are endangered,” he said. “It is time we start defending the interests of those who want to work and invest in Maine with ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Burgeoning Volume of Environmental Law Scholarship
I've had the impression that, over the time I've been following environmental law, there's been a dramatic increase in the amount of scholarship in the field. I did a search of the Westlaw JLR database for ("environmental regulation" "air pollution" "water pollution" "endangered species") with data restrictions. This search is only an approximation but it should capture a high proportion of environmental articles and not too many others. To the extent there are e...
CONTINUE READINGIowa’s Attack on Animal Rights Groups and the First Amendment
Industrial farmers have a PR problem: large-scale food manufacturing tends to go hand-in-hand with incidents of animal abuse. We can disagree about the pervasiveness of the problem, but it is nevertheless a problem. Iowa's solution? Criminalize the whistleblowers. From time to time, animal rights activists infiltrate corporate agribusinesses and film various abuses, such as pigs crammed in gestation crates or a worker stabbing cows with pitchforks. As the LA Tim...
CONTINUE READINGCultivating Pot A Huge Source Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
I'm not kidding. And oh the possibilities for bad puns. "Energy Up in Smoke" is the title of a new study that finds that marijuana production in the United States results in 1 percent of all electricity production across the country. One percent of all electricity production is the equivalent of providing electricity to 2 million average size homes. As the New York Times says in its blog on the report, "Don't bogart that megawatt, my friend." In California -- a ...
CONTINUE READINGOf Wolves and Men
It looks like one of the losers in the budget compromise will be the wolf. The Tester-Simpson rider, attached to the compromise federal budget bill, will delist wolves from the federal endangered species list in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah. Heather Hansen, at CU Boulder, has a detailed blog post on the wolf. The bigger loser here is the integrity of our environmental laws. This rider, a joint effort of Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Rep. Mike Sim...
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