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Please don’t take my sunshine away

Just when we thought we were gaining momentum in the effort to get solar panels installed throughout the state, the word from Napa is that thieves are stealing ground-based solar panels from wineries. While the problem may not be widespread yet, it reveals a potential challenge for ground-based solar installations (a topic that Ken mentions …

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Right 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 …

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Environmental Economics at EPA

EPA’s Science Advisory Board is considering feedback to EPA’s 2008 draft guidelines on economic analysis. The preliminary SAB draft makes a number of  interesting points: EPA needs to recongize that it’s discretion is limited: “only the legislative branch has the power to tax, subsidize, or assign liability, and both the Clean Water Act and the …

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For once, regulation precedes crisis

Often government doesn’t notice, or at least isn’t sufficiently motivated to respond to, the need for regulation until after something goes badly wrong (witness the financial market meltdown). But this week the National Marine Fisheries Service got ahead of the curve. On Monday, NMFS finalized a rule prohibiting all fishing for krill, the non-charismatic but …

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Ethanol and World Hunger

A new report, based on intensive modeling, raises serious concerns about the impact of first-generation biofuels such as corn ethanol.  The picture for second-generation fuels, such as the cellulosic ethanol now being researched at the Energy Bioscences Institute, is much better.  Note, however, that the source is somewhat suspect  — the OPEC Fund for International …

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Congress Looks at Pharmaceuticals in the Water. Here’s What They Should Do.

Cross posted with permission from CPRBlog This week, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing on the problem of waste pharmaceuticals ending up in the nation’s waterways. The issue sounds trivial – does Congress really need to spend its time worrying about people with a few left-over prescription pills flushing …

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Executive Branch Agreement on Mountaintop Removal: A Positive Step, but Only a Step

Cross-posted with permission from CPRBlog. Over the past few months, the Obama Administration has sent mixed signals on mountaintop mining, the practice of blowing the tops off mountains containing coal and piling the left-over rubble in valleys and streambeds. Early on, things seemed to be going well for the environment. First, EPA objected to the …

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Global warming winners? (oceans edition)

By now it is widely recognized that ocean warming and acidification caused by rising CO2 levels will adversely affect many organisms, especially those that depend on calcium carbonate shells. But there may be winners as well. Rebecca Gooding and a group from the University of British Columbia report in the Proceedings of the National Academy …

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ESA in the Everglades

There’s something for everyone to like (and to dislike) in the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Miccosukee Tribe v. United States. The case involved the Army Corps of Engineers’ management of south Florida’s extensive plumbing system. Compliance with the Endangered Species Act in operating the S-12 gates in the Central and South Florida project poses a …

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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 …

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