Trump Administration
Does Being Conservative Have to Mean Ignoring Risks?
Florida’s Ron DeSantis doesn’t seem to think so.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shows that it’s possible to be a staunch conservative and still be honest about the risks of climate change and the coronavirus.
CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Revisions to NEPA regulations
Trump Administration proposes drastic revisions to regulations that implement bedrock environmental law
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one of the most important statutes for public lands management in the United States, even though it actually is not specific to public lands. NEPA requires federal agencies to analyze and publicly disclose the significant environmental impacts of proposed agency actions, consider alternatives to those proposals, and seek …
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CONTINUE READINGMisunderstanding the Law of Causation
Trump’s NEPA proposal flunks Torts as well as Environmental Science 101.
Last week’s NEPA proposal bars agencies from considering many of the harms their actions will produce, such as climate change. These restrictions profoundly misunderstand the nature of environmental problems and are based on the flimsiest of legal foundations. Specifically, the proposal tells agencies they do not need to consider environmental “effects if they are remote …
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CONTINUE READINGPride Goeth Before a Fall
Trump thinks he can tell courts how to interpret NEPA. He’s wrong.
White House has just released its proposed revisions to the rules about environmental impact statements. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) simply does not have the kind of power that it is trying to arrogate to itself. The proposal is marked by hubris about the government’s ability to control how the courts apply the …
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CONTINUE READINGA Paper Tiger?
Trump is proposing big changes to CEQ regs. But they may not matter.
The Trump Administration is trying to gut the current White House rules on environmental impact statements. Some people view this move as a death blow to an important environmental tool. Here’s what Trump is trying to do and why it may not matter as much as people fear. As to what Trump & Co. are …
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CONTINUE READINGRevolt of the Captive Scientists
Trump’s Scientific Advisory Board Slams Proposed EPA Rules
Trump has appointed most of the members of EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), many of them selected from industry. That effort to stack SAB in favor of deregulation apparently wasn’t a complete success. In draft reports issued this week, the SAB scathingly criticized those efforts and even went so far as to give a nod …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Divya Rao: Confronting Reality: A Lack of Accountability at COP25
The Support of Toyota and Other Manufacturers for the Trump Administration’s Policy Rollbacks Shows the Need to Confront Corporate Decisionmaking on Energy and Climate
As Cara Horowitz and Idalmis Vaquero discussed in their blog posts, the true highlight of COP 25 has been the numerous youth and indigenous interventions, actions, and disruptions. After spending four days at the COP, I came away from the events surprised by the level of corporate visibility and greenwashing in the side events, but …
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CONTINUE READINGBoJo versus Trump on Climate
Why is the GOP such an outlier on climate change?
Boris Johnson is like Trump in many ways, including a casual disregar for truth, but they’re not alike on climate change. Right after his victory, Johnson renewed his pledge to make the UK carbon-neutral by 2050. He called for “colossal new investments. . . to make this country the cleanest, greenest on earth, with the …
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CONTINUE READINGAnalyzing the revisions to the ESA regulations (Part V)
Overall, the revised regulations increase agency discretion, particularly to avoid consideration of climate change
This is the fifth post in a series. The first post is available here. The second post is available here. The third post is available here. The fourth post is available here. Overall, the biggest takeaways from the proposed regulations are that (a) they are intended to substantially increase the discretion the agencies have in …
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CONTINUE READINGAnalyzing the revised ESA regulations (Part IV)
The most important revisions to the regulations affect how federal agencies avoid harm to endangered species under Section 7 of the ESA
This is the fourth post in a series. The first post is available here. The second post is available here. The third post is available here. The final regulations I am discussing in this post are available here. These are by far the most significant, but also the most complicated changes to the regulations. Section …
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