Region: National
Reviving LBJ’s Vision
Maybe What We Need is a Green Great Society
Talk about a Green New Deal is rife these days, but perhaps what we should be talking about instead is a Green Great Society. Actually, Lyndon Johnson’s vision of the great society was green from the get-go, so maybe we could just call for a renewed Great Society. What the Great Society is known for …
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CONTINUE READINGDuke Sucks: The Legal Planet March Madness Special
Why Is The University Killing Light Rail In The Research Triangle?
Like most people of intelligence and character, when it comes to NCAA basketball, I despise the Duke Blue Devils. As the precocious son of a good friend notes, “you can’t spell Blue Devil without evil.” I acknowledge Mr. Mxyzptlk’s Mike Krzyzewski’s greatness as a basketball coach, but it’s too much to put up with garbage quotations …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s “Great Honor” to Fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is a Great Falsehood
Trump Mischaracterizes His Administration’s Attempt to Defund Important Program to Protect Environmental Quality in the Great Lakes
Late last week, Donald Trump promised to fully fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program of the Environmental Protection Agency that provides resources to address environmental quality issues in the Great Lakes. His hollow promise obscures the fact that the Trump administration has worked hard to dismantle this program through taking away its funding, and …
CONTINUE READINGApril, Fools, and Climate Change
Originally, an April Fool was someone who didn’t realize the times are changing.
April Fool’s jokes are a curious tradition, and I started to wonder where this custom came from. The origins of April Fool’s Day aren’t known with certainty, but there’s reason to connect it with blindness to change. In 1582, France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. This meant that the year began …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump on the Environment: A Study in Falsehood
Hardly anything Trump says about the environment is actually true, or even arguable.
The Washington Post has a list of false statements by Trump, which turns out to be searchable by topic. They’ve found that “In the first eight months of his presidency, President Trump made 1,137 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day.” As of March 17, he was up to 9,179 false statements. …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA Shouldn’t Roll Back Coal Power Plant Emissions Standard, Conclude Experts in Electrical Grid Management and Pollution Control Technology Innovation
Emmett Institute Faculty File Two Comment Letters on Behalf of Experts, Demonstrating Flaws In Proposed Rollback of New Source Performance Standard for New Coal-Fired Power Plants
In 2015, EPA set greenhouse gas emissions standards for new coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Performance Standards program, Section 111(b) of the Act. These standards ensure that new plants can be built only if they incorporate state-of-the-art emissions controls. Unfortunately, in late 2018, the Trump Administration EPA proposed …
CONTINUE READINGCoastal Communities Demand EPA Update Decades-Old Oil Spill Regulations
Written in Collaboration with Camila Gonzalez*
Coastal communities are bracing themselves. Thirty years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and almost nine years after the BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, they are facing the threat of another catastrophic oil spill. The Trump Administration is paving the way. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will …
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CONTINUE READINGDowngrading OIRA
The acting regulatory “czar” is the least experienced in history.
Overlooked amidst all the other news, the White House picked a new acting regulatory czar earlier this month. The acting Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is Paul Ray, who is very junior and a virtual unknown. It’s difficult to imagine that he’s going to be very effective at telling cabinet officials …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA’s Mission: The Original Understanding
Guess what? EPA’s core mission wasn’t cutting regulatory costs.
What is EPA’s mission? To what extent is minimizing regulatory costs part of the core mission, as the Trump Administration seems to believe? Does the Trump/Pruitt/Wheeler view comport with original intent? History makes it clear that the answer is no. The title of the agency itself suggests that the core mission is protecting the environment, …
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CONTINUE READINGI Suppose We Can Just Hope That EIA Is Wrong
The federal estimate of energy-related carbon emissions in 2050 should get our attention.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) issues projections for future energy use across all sectors of society. They aren’t really predictions of our energy future — they are more like conversation starters. In fact, some researchers suggest that EIA shows a consistent bias by forecasting more energy use than actually occurs. Yet, …
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