Trump Administration
United States v. California and SB 50
Federal lawsuit against California’s law to protect federal public lands may not be an easy win
Monday the federal government filed a lawsuit against the state of California challenging SB 50, a state law that attempts to give the state the ability to purchase federal public lands that are sold or disposed of. The lawsuit has gotten a lot of attention in the press, some with assessments that the federal government’s …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy California gets to write its own auto emissions standards: 5 questions answered
Authored by Nicholas Bryner and Meredith Hankins
Rush hour on the Hollywood Freeway, Los Angeles, September 9, 2016. AP Photo/Richard Vogel This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Editor’s note: On April 2, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the Trump administration plans to revise tailpipe emissions standards negotiated by the Obama administration for motor …
CONTINUE READINGThe Disagreeable Mr. Pruitt
The list of his six worst traits starts with paranoia and ends with unbounded ambition.
I’m sure that Scott Pruitt has his good side. Probably he loves dogs. But his bad traits are, well, pretty hard to overlook. Here are some of the main characteristics of the man who is now charged by statute with protecting our environment: Paranoia. As Grist says, “in just his first year, he has reportedly …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: BLM Methane Rule (Again)
BLM proposes repeal of rule restricting methane emissions from oil and gas development on federal lands
Tom Schumann drafted this blog post. As previously announced, the Interior Department has published its proposal to roll back an Obama-era regulation aimed at reducing climate change-causing methane releases from oil and gas operations on federal lands. The Obama-era regulation—commonly known as the methane rule—would (1) limit the amount of methane produced by wells that …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump vs. Obama: Comparing Their First-Year Records
What Trump accomplish in his first year? In terms of energy & environment, less than Obama.
There’s been a lot of sound and fury, and many proposals are in the works. But what have the concrete results been so far? And how does Trump’s effectiveness stack up again Obama’s? I was prompted to ask that question by a note from Jonathan Rosenbloom, an environmental law scholar at Drake University. I had …
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CONTINUE READINGScott Pruitt’s Faulty Logic
There’s a gaping hole in Pruitt’s argument for repealing the Obama’s climate change rule.
An earlier blog post pointed to a logical gap in the current EPA’s justification for repealing the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the Obama Administration effort to cut emissions from electrical power plants. He makes an argument that EPA can only base rules on actions that polluters can take within a facility, and jumps from there …
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CONTINUE READINGSmall Hands/Small Infrastructure
It’s not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a plan for toll road and local tax hikes.
The initial response to Trump’s infrastructure plan has been justifiably critical. Jennifer Rubin, my favorite conservative columnist, says the plan doesn’t pass the straight-face test. A good deal of it is designed to encourage privatization of infrastructure or to eliminate environmental safeguards for new projects. I want to focus on a different aspect of the …
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CONTINUE READINGEight Setbacks for Trump
Trump hasn’t had things all his own way. Not by any means.
The Trump Administration has begun some bold initiatives but it’s too soon to know how they will fare. It also had some early success with blocking Obama’s regulation in Congress. But it has also had some significant setbacks, with courts or Congress rejecting positions it had embraced. Those setbacks make it clear that, bad as …
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CONTINUE READINGScott Pruitt: “What, me worry?”
The right question about greenhouse gas emissions is not whether there is an “ideal” global temperature regime, but what problems rapid regime shifts produce
(Readers of a certain age will understand the reference, and see the resemblance. If that’s not you, never mind. But read on for a little less snark and a little more analysis.) According to the Washington Post, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wondered in a television interview Tuesday whether global warming “necessarily is a bad thing,” …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump Administration to Hold California Hearing on Offshore Oil Drilling Proposal
Sacramento Hearing Likely to Be Both a Raucous and Fundamentally Flawed Affair
Legal Planet colleague Eric Biber this week has published a series of posts on the Trump Administration’s controversial–and deeply flawed–proposal to open most of the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf to offshore oil and gas development. I won’t attempt to retread the ground Eric has ably covered, but want to highlight a major upcoming and related event …
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