climate change and the Clean Air Act

The Trump Administration’s False Stories About the Environmental Protection Agency Are Meant to Take the Agency Down

Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt Distort the Facts About EPA’s Mission, History, and Success

The Trump Administration has made clear its plans to systematically dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency.  Destroying the EPA will be a key element of the administration’s fight, in the words of White House policy advisor Steve Bannon, to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”  [Update 8/22/17: Bannon is out, but that doesn’t change the Administration’s …

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Can We Make a Deal on Keystone XL?

Well, no, we probably can’t.  But President Obama might be well advised to try. Republicans are currently trying to force the White House into approving the pipeline.  Nebraska’s Governor recently flip-flopped and supported Keystone, saying now that he trusts TransCanada to do the necessary environmental work to protect the state’s econoloigcally sensitive Sandhill region.  In …

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Ninth Circuit Rules Against Indian Tribe’s Climate Change Suit

Not much of a surprise here; a Ninth Circuit panel “has ruled against the northwest Alaska village of Kivalina, which sued energy companies over claims that greenhouse emissions contributed to global warming that is threatening the community’s existence.”  The village brought a common-law public nuisance claim against the oil companies, but the panel held that …

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DC Circuit’s Unanimous Decision to Uphold Greenhouse Gas Rules Across the Board Major Victory for EPA

As Dan just noted, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — in a unanimous decision — handed the U.S. EPA a sweeping victory in upholding across the board four separate components of the agency’s rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.  The opinion can be found here. A little background is in order …

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Saving Public Nuisance

I agree with Rick’s take on the oral argument in Connecticut v. AEP — in fact, so much so that I predicted it three years ago!  But if the Supreme Court overturns the Second Circuit on the viability of a federal common law claim, that actually makes the viability of state common law claims stronger. …

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Shifting 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 …

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