Climate Politics
Climate Change Politics: Calling Junior Appropriators!
“Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over.” At least that’s the old saying (incorrectly attributed to Twain), and it is true. You can’t study water law for more than a moment without seeing conflict. In the west, water law is particularly conflictual due to the system of prior appropriation: rivers are divided into …
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CONTINUE READINGEducation and Views About Climate Change
A political science blog called the Monkey Cage (the name is a reference to an irreverent remark by H.L. Mencken) has an interesting post about education and views about climate change. As you would expect, education is positively correlated with a better understanding of the science — but only for liberals. Educated conservatives are no …
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CONTINUE READINGWhose Nature? God, the GOP, and Everyone Else
Some Americans say they don’t believe in climate change because they believe in God – or, more exactly, because of what they believe about God. A few weeks ago, the New York Times quoted some Indiana Tea Party activists who explained that, because the world was created for human use and benefit, using its mineral …
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CONTINUE READINGState AGs Ready to Attack Constitutionality of California’s AB 32
An important postscript to my earlier post regarding Berkeley Law’s/CLEE’s newly-published white paper on Proposition 23. That’s the California initiative measure that, if approved by voters this November, would suspend implementation of that state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that the Attorneys General of Alabama, …
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CONTINUE READING“Murky” Resolution Vote
The Senate voted today on Sen. Murkowski’s resolution to halt EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. The resolution was defeated by47 to 53. What are we to make of the vote? The resolution was offered under the Congressional Review Act, which provides a fast-track mechanism for Congress to override agency regulations. (The CRA, which was part …
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CONTINUE READINGBeing Lindsey Graham
I posted over the weekend about Lindsey Graham’s about-face on the climate bill. The Washington Post has a more sympathetic view, which I thought I should report out of fairness: And this is why Graham is angry: He’s taken a huge risk to be the lone Republican on climate change. Patrick Creighton, a flack for …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Politics of Climate Change: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over
There’s been a lot of talk about whether federal climate change legislation is dead for this session. Bradford Plummer at the New Republic makes a pretty good case that the legislation is still alive and kicking: That said, there don’t seem to be any signs that Democrats are planning to relent just yet. A few …
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CONTINUE READINGIt’s Déjà Vu All Over Again
Since opponents can’t seem to come up with any new arguments against climate change legislation, they seem determined to recycle the old, discredited ones. Here’s today’s example, straight from the GOP press release: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, today urged the Environmental Protection Agency to include several relevant studies in its …
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CONTINUE READINGA republican moment on climate change? Maybe not yet
The environmental community has been understandably excited about the prospect of finally getting U.S. legislative action in light of the popularity of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the development of a public consensus on the reality of global warming, the election of Barack Obama, and strong Democratic majorities in both House and Senate. That optimism, …
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CONTINUE READINGThe perfect political storm
Co-blogger Dan Farber points to a story in Tuesday’s NY Times about a new study by NOAA’s Susan Solomon and others of the environmental effects of allowing carbon dioxide to equilibrate at levels much above its current 385 ppm. As Dan points out, the prospects for already dry areas are frightening. There’s another important lesson …
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