Climate Change
Public Lands Watch: Sage Grouse Plans Move Forward
Administration takes next steps to scale back protections for iconic Western bird on federal public lands.
I’ve posted before about proposals by the Trump Administration to roll back protections for the sage grouse, an iconic species of the Western United States, from oil and gas development on federal public lands. (The initial blog post with background is here; the specific proposed revisions are here.) The Administration has now issued a final …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Negotiations Start in Poland: Setting the Stage
Much at Stake in COP-24, Including Negotiation of Paris Rulebook to Implement 2015 Commitments
This week and next, negotiators are meeting in Poland for the big annual international climate-change meeting. This meeting, formally, is the 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1992 treaty that provides the foundation for all official international action on climate change, and informally is called “COP-24.” It …
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CONTINUE READINGFrom the Wildfire Files
Wildfires are getting worse and worse. Here’s what we know about the situation.
I don’t normally do this, but given the terrible wildfires now hitting the state, I thought it was worth doing a reprise of some posts on the subject from earlier this summer. Of course, there’s more information in the original posts, if you want to click over to them. Spreading Like Wildfire In 2017, wildfires …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Bloggers Deborah Gordon and Frances Reuland: Is California Extraordinary? Its Oil Resources Certainly Are
Facts About California’s Oil and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Despite ongoing federal rollbacks to environmental regulations, California has the right to set its own clean air standards because it is truly extraordinary. Truth be told, the compelling circumstances that first set in motion California’s vehicle emissions standards remain entirely valid. And there are four recent conditions, related to California’s oil supply, production, and refining, …
CONTINUE READINGPost-election climate policy options
Options for newly empowered state governors, legislators and US House Representatives to advance climate policy
This post is co-authored by Dan Farber and Eric Biber. Democrats took control of the US House of Representatives in the election last week, took full control of six state governments (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Maine, and Illinois), took governorships in seven states (including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas), and made significant gains in …
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CONTINUE READINGPolitics, the Environment, and the Rural/Urban Divide
Rural areas have been home to regulatory skeptics. But there may be ways of changing that.
Is there an urban/rural split in America? Definitely so, in politics, demography, and economics — and on the environment. Consider this, from Dan Balz at the Washington Post: “in the 2,332 counties that make up small-town and rural America, [Trump] swamped his Democratic rival, winning 60 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 34 percent.” But Balz reports …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the future of climate policy
A response to William Nordhaus’s comments about how essential carbon taxes are to addressing climate change
William Nordhaus recently (and deservedly) won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on the economic implications of climate change and policies to respond to climate change. In the press coverage after the award, some comments were attributed to Nordhaus that I think are important to consider in more depth – in part because …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to Make of Chief Justice Roberts’ Stay of the Juliana Case
It’s only temporary but stay tuned
Last Friday, as Rick Frank previously blogged, Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary halt to the Juliana v. United States trial –the Juliana case was brought by a group of children alleging that the United States has violated the public trust doctrine and various provisions of the US. Constitution in failing to protect them from the ravages …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Scary Election (But Not Here)
An election next Sunday has implications for the entire planet.
I hate to give you something else to freak out about in our current Age of Anxiety, but there’s a very worrisome presidential election next Sunday. No, I haven’t completely lost it – the presidential race isn’t here, it’s in Brazil. The election pits a dangerous populist against a highly competent but colorless Establishment candidate. …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Stays Upcoming Juliana Trial
Chief Justice Roberts’ Order a Major Win for the Trump Administration
The presently-constituted U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t seem to care for climate change litigation or regulation. On Friday the Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of freezing pending discovery and the scheduled October 29th trial date in the closely-watched Juliana v. United States litigation. In a brief order, Chief Justice Roberts stayed all district court proceedings …
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