Climate Bill 2.0 on Hold
Senator Graham has announced that he's withdrawing from the effort to pass the bill that he helped to draft, because he's irked that the Administration is pressing forward on immigration reform. I'm struggling a bit to understand this. The charitable explanation is that he's trying to pressure the administration into giving the climate bill priority. The uncharitable explanations are that he's caving in to pressure from party leaders, or that he's just having a his...
CONTINUE READINGThe Libertarian Case for Controlling Climate Change
Libertarians are, of course, deeply suspicious of government regulation. This may lead to a reflexive rejection of climate change mitigation. But Jonathan Adler, who provides a refreshingly distinctive view of environmental law from the Right, argues otherwise. In a forthcoming article (only the abstract is available on SSRN), he contends that libertarians are making a mistake in opposing climate mitigation: [E]ven if anthropogenic climate change is decidedly less t...
CONTINUE READINGFuture Energy Scenarios
In a recent post, I discussed projections of future oil prices. There are big uncertainties, which obviously pose challenges for major oil companies among others. The approach that Shell takes to such uncertainties is instructive. Shell has a long history of using scenarios as a planning tool. An important recent example is its analysis of "energy scenarios to 2050." As a Shell energy analyst explained on NPR: Looking out to the year 2050, Shell strategist J...
CONTINUE READINGA Flock of Environmental Law Journals
Doug Kysar has compiled a list of environmental law journals, which some of our readers may be interested to see. It's notable how many journals (more than fifty) specialize in environmental, natural resource, or regulatory matters. The list is after the jump. You can also find another list with links here. Speaking of environmental law reviews, I'm reminded of a wonderful slogan that ELQ used on T-shirts a few years ago: "Saving the planet, one footnote at a ti...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Legislation 2.0
The Washington Post has some details about the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman proposal, along with some encouraging reports of endorsements by utilities and oil companies. (Those, of course, come with a price in terms of industry concessions.) Some key features: *The bill would take effect in 2013 and would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 -- with 2005 as the baseline. Not bad, but we really need 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 instead. *Two-...
CONTINUE READINGNew York Times Expands Its Green Blog
The New York Times announced yesterday that it's changing the name of its environmental blog and expanding its coverage. The name change is small but symbolic: from Green, Inc. to Green. The reason for the change is that coverage is expanding. As the Times explains, Green is: broadening our lens to include not just the business end of environmental concerns but also politics and policy, environmental science and consumer choices — all of the many areas where peopl...
CONTINUE READINGPopular Support for “Cap and Dividend”
According to a poll by Public Opinion Strategies, there seems to be strong public support for cap and dividend, at least if the question is framed positively. Here is the question along with some key results: “Some Democratic and Republican Senators have proposed an overhaul to America's energy system. The goal is to reduce pollution, make America less dependent on foreign oil, and create jobs. The proposal would make oil and coal companies pay for the pollution they...
CONTINUE READINGSchroeder Confirmed Despite Refusal to Limit Judicial Appointments to Androids.
The Senate has just confirmed Chris Schroeder as head of the Office of Legal Policy by a 72-24 vote. He was apparently controversial because he had spoken favorably of empathy as a judicial virtue -- the opposing position apparently favors the appointment of androids to the bench, such as Star Trek: New Generation's Commander Data. Alas, even on the show, Data is a one-off, and no one knows how to build additional androids. Actually, Schroeder is a long-time envir...
CONTINUE READINGFuture Oil Prices
The Energy Information Agency at DOE has some really interesting projections of future oil use and prices. According to the EIA, in their baseline scenario, "the price of light sweet crude oil in the United States (in real 2007 dollars) rises from $61 per barrel in 2009 to $110 per barrel in 2015 and $130 per barrel in 2030." The reason is rising demand in the developing world: "Total non-OECD energy consumption increases by 73 percent i...
CONTINUE READINGWarmest March on Record
NOAA reported late last week that this March was the warmest since records have been kept (circa 1880). Here's a map of "temperature anomalies" on land, showing where the temperature was warmer or colder than usual: Note that the biggest deviations are in the arctic, which is the area most sensitive to global climate change. Surface sea temperatures were also above normal....
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