Environment

New court ruling requires City, Wal-Mart to re-analyze GHG impacts of development and consider a more climate-friendly alternative

Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), local governments and state agencies in California must analyze the environmental impacts of any permit to approve a new development project, and must identify and promise to implement mitigation to the extent feasible, before approving the project.  Over the last two years, it has become clear that climate …

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Who will pay for the costs of foreign carbon dioxide in our consumer goods?

I discussed in this post the problem of GHG emissions from imported consumer products.  We import and buy more and more goods from China and other countries that rely heavily on greenhouse gas-intensive coal-fired power.  As a result, our consumer habits are responsible for a large and growing proportion of GHG emissions in other countries.   These …

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Jack Kemp’s Death

Jack Kemp died a few days ago.  He had served as a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise institute, where he worked on environmental matters:Jack Kemp is a distinguished fellow at CEI. The CEI page on him states: His work at CEI centers on promoting rational, free-market environmental policies. He has spoken out against the Kyoto …

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Good news for gondoliers

The Gallup poll showing increasing public skepticism about the climate change threat, which Holly blogs about below, does not bode well for Venice, California–unless you’re a gondolier.   A report was released yesterday, sponsored by several California agencies, giving more detail than ever before about the threats to California’s coast from rising sea levels.  Margot Roosevelt of …

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Supreme Court Denies Cert. in Mercury Case

The Supreme Court has declined to review a lower court opinion striking down the Bush Administration’s regulation of mercury.  This isn’t a huge surprise since the Obama Admimistration indicated that the lower court opinion was consistent with its own regulatory policy, leaving only the industry to seek revieew.  The lower court opinion is one of …

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Earth, we’re just not that into you

As part of the continual fallout from last month’s Pew poll on the country’s “top priorities” for 2009, which ranked the issue of global warming dead last, I’ve found myself in several conversations recently about terminology. Assuming one believes that this ranking is too low, is part of the problem the poll’s use of the term …

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Quote of the Day

“We have long suspected that the new administration would stress environmental enforcement activities at a faster clip than the last administration, and I think we’re seeing that,” said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents utilities. The quote referred to DOJ’s filing of an enforcement action involving new source standards.

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