What’s new on the Delta?
Quite a bit, and most of the news is bad. American Rivers has declared the Sacramento-San Joaquin the most endangered river in the United States. The longfin smelt has been listed as threatened by the state, but it is not going to be federally listed, at least not yet. Commercial salmon fishing off the California coast is one step closer to being formally closed for 2009. And while late rains have increased water supplies, some farmers are still slated to get little ...
CONTINUE READINGCleaning Up the Bush EPA’s Dry Cleaning Rule
The Washington Post reported that EPA "is reconsidering whether to compel dry cleaners to phase out a cancer-causing chemical used in tens of thousands of operations nationwide." In 2006, the Bush Administration issued an air toxics rule for professional dry cleaners using perchloroethylene in which it tightened technology requirements, but refused to phase out use of the chemical. This despite the fact that California regulators had already enacted phase outs, havin...
CONTINUE READINGFree Allowances! Get Your Free Allowances!
From WashPo, The Obama administration might agree to postpone auctioning off 100 percent of emissions allowances under a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas pollution, White House science adviser John P. Holdren said today, a move that would please electricity providers and manufacturers but could anger environmentalists. Why would this "anger environmentalists'? I certainly see the fiscal arguments for auctioning allowances, but I don't get why auctioning ma...
CONTINUE READING(Asian) oysters on the half shell
Almost two months ago, I blogged that a decision was expected soon about whether to deliberately introduce an Asian oyster to Chesapeake Bay in the hope of reviving the Bay's flagging oyster harvest. Well, it may not qualify as "soon," but the Washington Post reports that the U.S., Virginia, and Maryland have agreed to halt experimental farming of the Asian oyster. Instead, they will concentrate on efforts to restore the native species. At the insistence of Virgini...
CONTINUE READINGWaxman-Markey: Adaptation
(This post is co-authored with Alejandro Camacho, Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame, and cross-posted with permission from the Center for Progressive Reform blog.) It’s heartening that the recently released Waxman-Markey climate change bill discussion draft includes a lengthy subtitle on Adapting to Climate Change. No matter how rapidly the world acts to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, significant changes to global temperatures, sea levels, ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009–A Macro and Micro View
I'd like to follow up on Sean Hecht's recent posting concerning Congressional passage and President Obama's signing into law of the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009. This massive bill designates two million acres of wilderness in nine states as permanently off-limits to development, and increases the number of river miles protected under the federal wild and scenic rivers system by a full 50 percent. It's also the first major piece of environmental legislati...
CONTINUE READINGThe Washington Post versus George Will
The paper seems to be disavowing the views of its own columnist: The new evidence -- including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s -- contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979. I feel particularly chagrined by Will's inabil...
CONTINUE READINGShifting the Regulatory Status Quo: The Case of Climate Change
A basic insight of positive political theory is that the existence of veto points makes it possible for an agenda setter to substantially influence political outcomes. Essentially, an outcome is viable so long as it satisfies a basic condition: it must be closer than the status quoto to the optimum outcome for at least one gate keeper. Changing the status quo shifts the feasible set of outcomes. This has seemingly paradoxical implications for environmental law. ...
CONTINUE READINGGorbachev Goes Green
Matt Peterson's blog reports: President Gorbachev, the founder of Green Cross International (Global Green USA is the American affiliate) . . . said, "It's not just a matter of rescuing the world's economy -- there is more at stake. We must not expect the outcome of this crisis will be the replicating of the same old model of the economy we had for 50 years. If we base the efforts for a healthy economy on this effort to reduce hydrocarbons, this would lay the groundwork...
CONTINUE READINGWaxman bill on state cap-and-trade efforts
I've been reading the Waxman-Markey energy and climate discussion draft released earlier in the week (and blogged about by Rick here). One thing I'm puzzling over is the draft's treatment of state cap and trade regulations. As many have noted, the question of which state climate efforts are saved and which are preempted is an important one--several of the Legal Planet crew heard Mary Nichols & others talk about its importance and about the need for "new models ...
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