Endangered species bizarro-bill introduced
In the Superman comics, everything is backwards in Bizarro World. I thought I must have been unknowingly transported there when I read H.R. 1042, introduced by California Democrat Joe Baca, imaginatively (if incoherently) named the "Discredit Eternal Listing Inequality of Species Takings Act" (the DELIST Act, get it?). (Hat tip: ESA blawg.) The text of the bill is even less coherent than the title so it's a bit tough to parse, but let's try. It would give certain spec...
CONTINUE READINGHow NOT to Report on Climate Change
My eye couldn't help but be drawn to this headline from the Times of India: 'Nearly 80% of mango crop ruined by climate change'. Wow, I thought. Even for a pessimist like myself, that's quite a lot. And how did they determine that? Then I looked at the story. Here's the lede: Alphonso, the king of mangoes, has fallen victim to climate change. The state government's preliminary estimate is that nearly 80% of the mango crop has been destroyed, said agriculture m...
CONTINUE READINGBush-era EPA § 404 veto survives judicial review
A federal court in Mississippi has rejected a legal challenge to EPA's 2008 veto of a Clean Water Act § 404 permit for the Yazoo Pumps flood control project. (Hat tip: PLF Liberty Blog.) The Yazoo Pumps project was an anachronism, even by pre-environmental era standards. (This brief history of the project is based on the court's opinion.) In the 1940s, Congress authorized a flood control project which would protect populated and agricultural areas at elevations more ...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Denial Legislators Struck by Scientific “Friendly Fire”
Paul Krugman has a great column about the so-called climate science hearing last week: So the joke begins like this: An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room. What’s the punch line? They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science. Krugman continues with a discussion of one of my Berkeley colleagues: But the joke actually ended up being on the Republicans, when...
CONTINUE READINGWhite House review delays EPA mountaintop removal guidance
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. EPA has announced that it will delay finalizing its guidance memorandum on Clean Water Act permitting for mountaintop removal mining projects pending review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The announcement is bad news for Appalachian streams, and worse news for environmental interests hoping the Obama administration won't completely cave to regulated interests. The guidance was issued in interim form on April 1 of last year....
CONTINUE READINGA Risky FWS Proposal to Limit ESA Petitions
The Endangered Species Act has long been a lightning-rod for controversy. The last administration tried to significantly circumscribe the scope of the ESA in a wide range of ways (see, e.g, here). The Obama Administration up to this point in time has in general sharply contrasted with its predecessor in ESA management, including listing a lot more species and reversing some of the more controversial proposals of the last administration. (But there are exceptions, s...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Justice and Adaptation to Climate Change
I'm beginning to wonder whether we need an "Endangered People Act" to ensure that the most vulnerable get the protection they need from climate change impacts. Climate change will disproportionately affect vulnerable individuals and poorer regions and countries, as I discuss in a recent paper comparing adaptation efforts in China, England, and the U.S. For example, by the end of the century, the number of heat wave days in Los Angeles could double, while the number in ...
CONTINUE READINGGood News from the Budget Negotiations?
It is, of course, absurd that the House, Senate, and White House are even negotiating about budget cuts in the midst of the Great Contraction. But it does seem that the environmental community has gotten something of a win -- at least if you believe the Senators most closely involved in the negotiations: Under intense pressure from green groups and their members, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) announced Friday that Republican proposals to gut the Clean Air Ac...
CONTINUE READINGEcology Law Quarterly publishes Volume 37 number 4
ELQ's latest issue, 37(4), is now available online. It begins with a warm tribute to the late Phil Frickey. The articles cover a wide range of topics, from Canadian environmental to renewable energy siting, genetics and the Endangered Species Act, and the role of tribes in water pollution regulation in Maine. The issue closes with a review of Tim Egan's latest book, The Big Burn. Check it out, using the links below or directly from ELQ's website. Philip Frickey (In Me...
CONTINUE READINGConservatives and climate change
Dan notes, in a recent post, the ways in which potential Republican presidential candidates are backwards-pedaling on whatever statements they might once have made supporting action to address climate change. (Climate change is apparently the new former mistriss -- we've all flirted in the past with things we now regret.) Former Congressman Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) spoke at UCLA Law earlier this week and shed some light on the current Republican allergy to climate act...
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