Time for Fundamental Water Reform in California?
Yesterday was a most interesting, and potentially-momentous, day for water policy in California. Taking center stage at the state Capitol in Sacramento was a joint hearing of California State Senate and Assembly environmental committees to consider a package of bills addressing the chronic environmental ills that have befallen the California Delta and failures in state water policy generally. The day-long legislative hearing possessed a sense of urgency: after three...
CONTINUE READINGRight whales may need more room
The North Atlantic right whale is critically endangered. The National Marine Fisheries Service pegs its current population at roughly 313 individuals, unchanged over the last 25 years. (Early this year there were hopeful reports of a potential rebound, or at least a very good calving season.) Right whales migrate from winter calving grounds off Florida to summer feeding grounds in New England and north. Because their migratory route hugs the busy eastern seaboard, ship...
CONTINUE READINGExxon-China Natural Gas Deal
Greenwire reports: PetroChina Co., a unit of China National Petroleum Corp., today signed a 20-year, $41 billion deal to buy gas from ExxonMobil Corp., Australian Energy and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said. Exxon will mine the gas from its 25 percent share of Australia's Gorgon gas field, Ferguson said, moving the offshore project one step closure to fruition. Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC own 50 percent and 25 percent stakes, respectively, in the fiel...
CONTINUE READINGHow Religion and Environmentalism Can Mix Productively
A few weeks ago, I posted on religion on the environment, expressing some skepticism that religion could be useful in environmental policy debates. After thinking about it a bit, I've revised that view somewhat, for a reason that can actually be encapsulated pretty succinctly: Religion is not economics. That's pretty obvious, of course, but it also demonstrates religious thought's potential utility in considering policy debates. Since the Reagan era, those have bee...
CONTINUE READINGSpecter on Board for Climate Legislation
Grist reports that Senator Specter says that he will vote for cloture and expects to support climate legislation on the merits. This is a shift from his position last year. That's one step closer to sixty votes....
CONTINUE READINGNew Issue of Ecology Law Quarterly is Available On-Line
Creating Flexibility in Interstate Compacts Emily Jeffers Read Article (PDF) Environmental Conservation Organization v. City of Dallas Creates Unnecessary Burdens for Citizen Suits under the Clean Water Act Catherine Mongeon Read Article (PDF) Making Snow in the Desert: Defining a Substantial Burden under RFRA Jonathan Knapp Read Article (PDF) Taking a Hard Look at Agency Science: Can the Courts Ever Succeed? Sara A. Clark Read Article (PDF) Lack of Deference: The...
CONTINUE READINGShow Me The Money!
Guess what? The oil industry is about to launch a populist campaign against climate change legislation. (Stop me if you've heard this one before.) Why would they do such a thing? The latest statistics on executive pay may tell us something about that. It turns out, according to Reuters, that the top bracket of employee compensation is dominated by oil executives: The CEOs of Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY - News), Hess Corp (NYSE:HES - News), Ultra Petroleu...
CONTINUE READINGAnd You Think Health Care Is Controversial?
In watching the insanity of the debate over health care reform in the past couple of weeks I can't help but wonder what the debate over climate change legislation will bring. Lest you think the right wing opponents of health care reform can't be beat in their intensity and rhetorical outrage, consider the following two pieces of information. First, Talkingpointsmemo.com revealed today the existence of a memo from the American Petroleum Institute urging member oil com...
CONTINUE READINGAnd You Wonder Why People Don’t Respect Lobbyists?
A cap-and-trade bill was defeated in Australia yesterday. As the New Republic points out (here), it's not clear that this is anything more than a temporary setback. An interesting sidelight, however, concerns the sources of the opposition -- some of which are U.S.-based: Incidentally, one of the largest, most influential opponents of the Australian bill was U.S. coal behemoth Peabody Energy, whose CEO Gregory Boyce seems to think global warming is all hokum and is b...
CONTINUE READINGMeat and climate change redux
Back in January, I blogged about the link between meat production and GHGs. Grist.org has taken up this issue recently, with an interesting article by Tom Philpott making the case that U.S. livestock production is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, and a rebuttal from farmer Eliot Coleman. As Philpott's article notes, a U.N. FAO report from a couple of years ago, Livestock's Long Shadow, found that 18% of global GHG emissions are caused by meat production wo...
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