Accounting for The Harm of Coal
Much of the effort to rollback current EPA regulations focuses on coal-fired electrical power plants. An article in the August issues of the American Economic Review sheds light on the issues at stake. "Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy" is an effort to assess the damages caused by various polluting activities. The findings show that, contrary to current political mythology, coal is underregulated. On average, the harm produced by...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Governor Brown Signs CEQA Reform Bills
Today California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law legislation amending the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to facilitate construction of both a major new sports stadium in downtown Los Angeles and large "environmental leadership development projects" involving financial commitments of at least $10 million and that incorporate substantial urban infill or renewable energy components. This controversial legislation, enacted in the waning hours of the Califo...
CONTINUE READINGSecret Synagogue Reading for Environmentalists
As the Jewish High Holy Days approach, it is of course time for thinking deeply about.... what books you will read in shul during services. Rabbis extol Rosh Hashanah Mussaf as liturgical brilliance, but the rest of us find it to be spiritual chloroform. Well, fortunately enough, the Jewish environmentalist literature has gotten better over the last several years, and here are a couple you can sneak into the sanctuary without feeling guilty (an important side bene...
CONTINUE READINGA Setback for Clean Ports
Hot off the presses, the Ninth Circuit has partially reversed Judge Christina Snyder's order in American Trucking Ass'n v. City of Los Angeles, an important environment-labor-pre-emption case that I blogged about a little more than one year ago. The case concerns the Port of Los Angeles' "Clean Ports" program, which, among other things mandates a series of quite specific environmental standards for truck operators at the Port. The ATA argued that the Program was pre...
CONTINUE READINGThe Roots of Climate Skepticism
Scientists recently discovered a planet made of diamond, an amazing discovery. One of them has commented on how well that scientific discovery was received, as opposed to research on climate change: Our host institutions were thrilled with the publicity and most of us enjoyed our 15 minutes of fame. The attention we received was 100% positive, but how different that could have been. How so? Well, we could have been climate scientists. Imagine for a minute that, instead...
CONTINUE READINGTRAIN Wreck!
My last short post on jobs and regulation turns out to be particularly timely. The House just passed the TRAIN bill, as E&E reports: Passing largely along party lines, 249-169, the "TRAIN Act" (H.R. 2401) would delay new U.S. EPA rules for mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, while creating a new Cabinet-level panel to study the cumulative effect of about a dozen rules on the economy (Greenwire, Sept. 23). The bill was amended to require EPA to consider the ...
CONTINUE READINGJobs & Regulation Revisited
Blake Hudson called my attention to a nice post on this subject at ProPublica. The post has links to two very interesting documents. The first is to a Census Bureau report showing that hardly any employers attribute layoffs to regulatory burdens. The other is to a very careful study by Dick Morgenstern, a highly respected environmental economist, which found a possible small but positive effect of regulation on jobs: We find that increased environmental spending gene...
CONTINUE READINGWhat EPA should do with its delayed performance standards for GHGs
On September 15, EPA announced that it would not meet its September deadline for proposing performance standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from power plants. (That is the second delay; this proposal was originally scheduled for July 2011.) Some are asking if this delay is a big deal, and several environmental leaders sent President Obama a letter requesting the prompt release of the new standards. These would be New Source Performance Standards under Section 11...
CONTINUE READINGArguing Climate by Analogy, or: Stupid Like a Fox
Bill Clinton says that Republican climate-change deniers make the United States "look like a joke": "I mean, it makes us -- we look like a joke, right?" Clinton said. "You can't win the nomination of one of the major parties in the country if you admit that scientists are right?" Kathleen Parker, in a thoughtful column, explains why this might not work. Parker's conservatism rejects the Know-Nothingism now required in the GOP, but she outlines an important piece of the...
CONTINUE READINGThe Last Standing Article You’ll Ever Have to Read
O.K., so the headline is a little misleading -- or to put it more bluntly, just plain wrong in three different ways. First, unless you're a law professor or maybe a D.C. lawyers, you'll never have to read an article about standing doctrine at all, because you'll never need to worry about the arcane doctrine that governs when citizens can challenge government actions in federal court. Second, if you are a law professor, you'll be faced with an unending stream of article...
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