Concerned about nuclear power safety? Be not ashamed.
Should an individual state be able to decide whether or not there will be an active nuclear power plant within its borders? And whether it should or not, would federal law allow it? These are questions that I am left with after a recent trip to Vermont. Any day now, a federal judge will decide whether the State of Vermont should be enjoined from ordering the closure of the Vermont Yankee plant. Vermont is not the only state grappling with the wisdom of nuclear plant ...
CONTINUE READINGCourt upholds polar bear “threatened” status
The first big opinion in the polar bear listing case is out. Score two for the Fish and Wildlife Service: the agency's decision to list the bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act prevailed against challenges from the Center for Biological Diversity on one side and the state of Alaska and hunting groups on the other. The overriding theme of the opinion in In re Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing and § 4(d) Rule Litigation is deference. Judge Sulliv...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Slowing Down on Cap and Trade
Yesterday, Mary Nichols slipped a bit of a bombshell into testimony before the California Senate Select Committee on the Environment, the Economy and Climate Change. She announced that the state's Air Resources Board is planning to "initiate" the cap and trade program in 2012 but not "start the requirements for compliance" until 2013. This effectively delays cap and trade's start date by a year. (I have a copy of Nichols testimony but haven't found it online). I...
CONTINUE READINGHappy Birthday, Yosemite
On June 30, 1864, Abraham Lincoln signed legislation that transferred “the ‘cleft’ or ‘gorge’ in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada Mountains” known as “Yo-Semite valley” [sic] to the State of California for “public use, resort, and recreation.” Yosemite Park Act of 1864, ch. 184, § 1, 13 Stat. 325 (1864). The purpose of the law was to remove the land from the federal public domain in order to protect it from development....
CONTINUE READINGThe Supreme Court on Climate Torts — A Second Look
Let's begin with the bad news. The plaintiffs lost, eliminating one possible tool in combating climate change. That doesn't seem like a big loss to me, because I've always thought that the defendants' best argument was that the federal common law is displaced by the Clean Air Act. It's an easy argument to make based on precedent, although there are also some counter-arguments. So it's not at all surprising that the case came out that way. The other bad news is fo...
CONTINUE READINGWestern Flood Risk
Time magazine reports: First came the Mississippi. Then the Missouri. Now the nation's West waits as the mountain snowpack perches at 300% more than average and flood watches blanket the region. With minor flooding already hampering life in Montana, Wyoming and Utah, a sudden spike of warm temperature will send even more melting snow rushing into already filling rivers throughout the Rockies, Cascades and Sierras. The big question is whether we get a temperature spike a...
CONTINUE READINGAdd these to your reading list
Here's some summer reading for environmental law and policy nerds. Okay, it's not exactly beach material, but it will keep you up to date on some important issues. Elizabeth L. Bennett, Another Inconvenient Truth: The Failure of Enforcement Systems to Save Charismatic Species, Oryx (subscription required). Dr. Bennett, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, argues that enforcement of restrictions on wildlife trade has failed to keep up with the increasingly sophistica...
CONTINUE READINGMore on Sackett v. EPA
As Rick notes below, the Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a case arising from enforcement of the wetlands permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act, Sackett v. EPA (the link is to the 9th Circuit's opinion). SCOTUSblog has links to the briefs at the cert stage. Rick explained that the genesis of this case is in a dispute over wetlands filling. The Sacketts filled a half acre or so of their property with dirt and rock in preparation for a construction project. ...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Clean Water Act/Wetlands Case
2012 is shaping up as a busy year for environmental law at the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, as the Court recessed for the summer, the justices granted certiorari in a second environmental case that it will hear and decide in its 2011-12 Term: Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 10-1062. Sackett involves a development dispute between an Idaho couple and EPA enforcement officials that arose under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). The Sacketts filled ...
CONTINUE READINGA summer meditation on the meaning of wilderness
It's outdoor weather in far northern California, my favorite place on the planet. A day hike yesterday in the beautiful Trinity Alps Wilderness reminded me of the central question of wilderness management: how much anthropogenic modification for what purposes is compatible with the wilderness experience? This hike provided two contrasting perspectives on that question. It's just gone spring in the high country here, after an unusually snowy winter. The azaleas, lady's s...
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