Climate Change
Big Three backs CAA regulation, cars deal
An interesting development: Yesterday, the industry group for major car manufacturers sent a letter to Congressional leaders opposing Sen. Murkowski’s legislative efforts (discussed by Holly here) to un-do EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding. The Murkowski resolution, as many have pointed out, would have the result of undoing the federally brokered cars deal set to impose Clean Air …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Chamber of Commerce adopts “grassroots” organizing tactic, redoubles attacks on climate science and law
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – a significant and strident voice in opposition to anything that our government might possibly do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – is using its considerable financial resources to dramatically increase its constituent base through “grass-roots organizing,” and that its influence is …
CONTINUE READINGPink Flamingo: Carpetbagger or March Madness?
While Holly Doremus considers the State of the Birds, it might be fair to ask her why she spotted a Greater Flamingo, yesterday, in Northern California. The six Berkeley Law students and this blogger, who accompanied her on a paddle at the Elkhorn Slough and came upon this scene, want to know. Normally, the closest …
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CONTINUE READINGNew bill in Congress by Rockefeller (S. 3072) would delay regulation of GHGs under the Clean Air Act
As Cara and I have already discussed in detail, the Environmental Protection Agency has committed to delay the rollout of regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, and to regulate only the very largest sources. This backtracking from EPA has been a response to efforts by Senator Lisa Murkowski …
CONTINUE READINGTailoring the tailoring rule – we’re up to 75,000 tpy
Last week, Sean asked whether the EPA was backing off its plan to begin regulating stationary sources of greenhouse gas pollutants under the Clean Air Act. This week, we learn more about the answer (“yes”) and some details about how much it’s backing off (“lots”). Background: The CAA requires EPA to begin regulating greenhouse gases …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Ironic History of Cap-and-Trade
The phrase “cap-and-trade” is relatively new, but the idea of marketable pollution allowances goes back several decades. Conventional pollution laws impose direct mandates on polluters, telling each polluter precisely what level of pollution control is required. For a variety of reasons, economists have always disapproved of this approach. They prefer pollution taxes (a/k/a effluent charges) …
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CONTINUE READINGIs EPA backtracking on Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulation?
UPDATE: Cara discusses in this post some further developments that make the EPA’s plans more concrete, and concludes that the EPA is backtracking significantly from its proposed rule by delaying the timetable and by regulating fewer facilities. **** Last fall, our Environmental Protection Agency appeared to be on the verge of moving very quickly to …
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CONTINUE READINGIPhone App to Counter Climate Skeptics
Jonathan and I have had a somewhat spirited debate about what to do about Climategate (see here and here). I just found one perhaps small but very smart answer: an IPhone app that lists top arguments from climate skeptics and succinct rebuttals. The arguments are divided into three categories: “it’s not happening,” “it’s not us” …
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CONTINUE READINGAB 32 Opposition and Truth in Advertising
While some politicians have called publicly for the suspension of AB 32 until the economy recovers (see here and here for details), a more behind-the-scenes effort to undercut the implementation of California’s global warming bill is also taking place. The AB 32 Implementation Group (“IG”) says it “represents large and small business that are vital to …
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CONTINUE READINGExtreme Events
I spent yesterday at a conference at RFF on managing “tail risks” — the low-probability but extreme events that are on the tail of the probability distribution. Some probability distributions have what are called fat tails, meaning that the extreme events are more likely than you would expect from a normal distribution. One way of …
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