Another edition of good news, bad news
The bad news is about climate change (no surprise). The more we learn, the more daunting the problem appears. Cases in point: A column in the journal Nature (subscription required) provided the short version of a report issued this past spring by the California Council on Science and Technology on what it will take for California to achieve the 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels mandated by AB 32 and Executive Order S-3-05. The bottom line? Curr...
CONTINUE READINGEPA sends GHG NSPS rules to OMB
On Tuesday, Nov. 4, EPA sent its proposed GHG rule for power plants to the Office of Management and Budget. Not a widely reported story, perhaps because the internet was too busy misquoting EPA Administrator Jackson, who was speaking at Berkeley Law at the time. Or perhaps because we do not actually get the proposed regulations until OMB gives its approval. Cleantechnica and the LA Times have some background info. The rule, "Greenhouse Gas New Source Performance...
CONTINUE READINGGOP Postmodernism Continues Apace
It's bad enough that Republicans have declared war on science, and war on facts: now they are declaring war on math. Newt Gingrich says that the Congressional Budget Office should be abolished, mainly it will tell him things that he doesn't like. As Brian Beutler of TPM notes, any attempt to repeal health care reform will increase the deficit, and the Republicans don't want to have that headline. But this is more than short-term politics: it is long-term ideology, a...
CONTINUE READING2012 California Water Law Symposium: register now
Registration is now open for the 2012 California Water Law Symposium, to be held Saturday, January 21, 2012. The Symposium is a remarkable event, launched in 2005 by a consortium of law students from Bay Area schools. This eighth edition is made possible by the cooperative efforts of students from Berkeley Law (this year's host), Golden Gate University School of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, UC Davis School of Law, and UC Hastings College of the Law. In...
CONTINUE READINGUC Berkeley / UCLA Law Conference on Local Government Climate Change Policies
The UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law are holding a free public conference at UC Berkeley on Friday, December 2nd to discuss local government climate change policies. Conference speakers include some of the state's top policy, business, and environmental leaders, who will report on promising ways that cities and counties can address climate change and clear the path to a local clean energy future. The two law schools present this conference as part of the Business ...
CONTINUE READINGWho Killed the Ozone Rule?
It seems that Bill Daley did: Obama’s surprise move to block an ozone regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed immense pressure from industry trade associations, which made numerous personal appeals to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Daley met with the heads of several business groups more than two weeks before Obama withdrew the regulation — an unusual level of senior White House involvement in the regulatory process. “We saw...
CONTINUE READINGLawyerly Greenwashing from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative
A few weeks ago, I argued that only wood and paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council really should be called a sustainable product. Much to my surprise, the post got a robo-comment from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the paper industry's group, claiming that it, too, was a legitimate certification organization. Given SFI's pretty shameful track record, I was skeptical, but promised to follow up with more detail on the contrasting standards and polic...
CONTINUE READINGThe Problematic Pipeline Approval Process
The State Department has announced that its Inspector General will be looking into the process for approval of the controversial pipeline. There are certainly reasons to worry about the integrity of the process. The State Department held public hearings, but turns out to have no plan for actually considering the comments; in the meantime, it has actually lost tens of thousands of written comments completely. Not only that, but it has used a consultant that allegedl...
CONTINUE READINGWhatever Happened to K Street?
Yet another core sector of the American economy seems to be in trouble. After years of consistent growth, lobbying seems to be on the skids. According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, lobbying expenditures doubled from 2001 to 2008, reaching $3.3 billion that year. Expenditures in 2009 and 2010 stabilized at around $3.5 billion. But 2011 looks grim, with only $2.4 billion reported so far. It's not just because the year hasn't finished ye...
CONTINUE READINGTenth Circuit upholds Clinton-era Roadless Rule
You wouldn't think courts would still be deciding, late in 2011, whether actions taken by the Clinton Administration were lawful. But they are. Late last month, the Tenth Circuit upheld the Roadless Rule for national forests issued at the very end of the Clinton presidency. The Roadless Rule, which largely prohibited road construction and timber harvest in inventoried roadless areas, has been the subject of a game of judicial and executive ping-pong. Wyoming challenged ...
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