GOP Environmental Policy FAIL
Last month, when discussing the egregious subsidies for ethanol that expire this year, I commented, "Here is a great test to see whether Republican anti-government and anti-spending rhetoric is any more than that." Well, so much for that: Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen says they are thrilled with passage of the Senate tax package that includes a one year extension of current ethanol tax incentives.... Dinneen says the blender’s tax credit has been ...
CONTINUE READINGWhite House scientific integrity guidelines — a long wait for not much
Early on in the Obama administration, promoting scientific integrity in government decisionmaking seemed to be a high priority. Less than 2 months after his inauguration, the President issued a memorandum giving the Office of Science and Technology Policy 4 months to "develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch." On December 17, OSTP Director John Holdren finally issued his own memorandum in r...
CONTINUE READINGWhat a Gas! A Rare Win-Win
Oil and gas wells vent or flare off natural gas. New technology shows that this is actually a lot more gas than anyone knew -- about four percent of production, according to GAO. Capturing that natural gas for sale would give the government millions of dollars in royalties. Vented gas is methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than the CO2 which would be emitted if the gas were captured and burned. If captured, gas that is currently flared could be sold, replacing part...
CONTINUE READINGThoughts on the latest Delta smelt ruling
As Sean pointed out yesterday, this week federal District Judge Wanger issued another ruling in the ongoing litigation over protection of the Delta smelt and restrictions on diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system. Reviewing the opinion, my first reaction was sympathy for the judge and his staff. There is no question that sorting through all the issues, the competing arguments, and the supporting scientific evidence in this case presents extraordinary cha...
CONTINUE READINGA big news week for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
This has been a significant news week for California's delta. On Wednesday, California's Natural Resources Agency endorsed a plan for a water tunnel system to bypass the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, coupled with a habitat restoration plan for the Delta. Bettina Boxall's story in today's Los Angeles Times has the details. Many environmental groups oppose the plan, a variation on the so-called peripheral canal plan from decades ago. (This L.A. Times article ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia designates new Marine Protected Areas
The California Department of Fish and Game has created a new network of state-designated Marine Protected Areas, as Tony Barboza reported today in the Los Angeles Times. This action, controversial because of its restrictions on fishing in the protected areas, begins to fulfill the promise of California's decade-old Marine Life Protection Act. As this detailed map of the new reserves shows, the new reserves are in Southern California, and many of them are located off th...
CONTINUE READINGOf Smart Meters, San Bruno, and Regulatory Action
When the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and California regulators confronted recent health and reliability concerns related to smart meters, they stumbled because of a failure to address these concerns upfront -- before committing billions to statewide meter conversion. The loss of public confidence in the aftermath of the tragic gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno stems from a similar failure. Whether or not PG&E should have done more to guard against such acc...
CONTINUE READINGBP spill lawsuit complaint and link to early analysis
Here's the complaint in the newly-filed lawsuit the United States filed against BP today, which I summarized earlier in this post. And NRDC's David Pettit has written an interesting blog post with some initial thoughts about timing and choice of defendants in the lawsuit....
CONTINUE READINGU.S. sues BP, eight other defendants for violations of Oil Pollution Act in Deepwater Horizon blowout
Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit alleging that BP, Transocean, and seven other firms caused or contributed to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill earlier this year. The lawsuit seeks response costs, natural resource damages, and economic damages under the Oil Pollution Act, as well as civil penalties under the Clean Water Act. According to the government's media release:...
CONTINUE READINGOceans: the biggest loser from our international failure to address greenhouse gas emissions?
In this op-ed from Monday's Los Angeles Times, UC San Diego scientists Tony Haymet and Andrew Dickson succinctly and directly summarizes the threat that ocean acidification poses to our world, and plead for reductions in carbon emissions. (My colleagues have blogged about ocean acidification before, here and here among other places.) Unfortunately, as my colleague Cara Horowitz noted yesterday, those reductions aren't coming anytime soon. Because the ocean is a c...
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