EPA
Searching For EPA’s Poison Pill
For the third time this year, Republicans in Congress seem to be angling for a government shutdown. Not only will there be disagreements on funding levels, but the House will insist on attaching riders to appropriations bills preventing agencies from doing various things. I realize that this may come as a shock, but the House …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat EPA should do with its delayed performance standards for GHGs
On September 15, EPA announced that it would not meet its September deadline for proposing performance standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from power plants. (That is the second delay; this proposal was originally scheduled for July 2011.) Some are asking if this delay is a big deal, and several environmental leaders sent President Obama …
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CONTINUE READINGTwo weeks of protest against Keystone XL ends Saturday
Two weeks of civil disobedience and protest against the Keystone XL pipeline ends this Saturday (Sept. 3), with a rally and final sit-in. Over 1,000 people have been arrested, including my former professor , Gus Speth. The protestors want President Obama to deny a permit to construct a pipeline to bring oil from Canadian tar …
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CONTINUE READINGBring Out Your Dead!
For instance, if you’ve been married five times, and each of the five spouses has drowned in the bathtub soon after writing a will in your favor, that “statistical” evidence is enough for a conviction. Similarly, if hospital admissions and ER visits for asthma go up on days when air pollution spikes, it would be irresponsible for the government to ignore that evidence.
CONTINUE READINGGrandfathering bad air: EPA exempts power plant from new climate and air quality rules
EPA has issued a controversial decision exempting a new, natural-gas power plant proposed for California’s San Joaquin Valley, a region with some of the worst air quality in the country, from the most up-to-date Clean Air Act rules aimed at reducing climate emissions and the pollutants NO2 and SO2. Here’s the E&E story, and here’s the EPA decision, likely to …
CONTINUE READINGEPA Tackles Climate Adaptation
For the first time, EPA has addressed the issue of climate change adaptation in a letter from Administrator Lisa Jackson. The contents of the letter are not startling: mostly instructions to carry out existing policies or government recommendations on climate change. Two points are worth noting, however. First, the Administrator directs the agency to produce …
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CONTINUE READINGA new look for fuel economy stickers
If you go shopping for a new car in model year 2013, you’ll see a new sort of fuel economy window sticker, like the one to the left. This is a fascinating example of the challenges of making labels both easy to absorb and informative. (It’s definitely going in my environmental law casebook update.) It’s …
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CONTINUE READINGTMDL Fight Brewing in Chesapeake Bay
On December 29, 2010, EPA finalized a plan to reduce nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay by implementing a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) budget using its Clean Water Act authority. That plan will require a 25% reduction in nitrogen, a 24% reduction in phosphorus and a 20% reduction in sediment throughout the watershed. This includes …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Clean Air Act and Greenhouse Gases: Full Employment Act for Lawyers
For several years now, large law firms have sought work related to climate change, though prior to President Obama’s election the work was relatively thin. Sure there were challenges to California’s legislation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from cars; defenses to claims under the National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act; and …
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CONTINUE READINGAEP v. Connecticut oral argument
This morning, the Supreme Court heard 75 minutes of oral argument in AEP v. Connecticut. My fellow blogger, Richard Frank, already gave us a preview of the arguments. SCOTUSblog has a nice recap of what happened this morning. I would just like to highlight a few points from the oral argument. First, the Justices seem …
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