Trump Administration

Public Lands Watch: HR 4239

House bill would give states control of oil and gas leasing process, weaken Presidential power to restrict leasing

Tom Schumann drafted this blog post. Provisions tucked in a House oil and gas development bill would repeal one of the oldest conservation laws and scale back another. The provisions show House Republicans working to make rollbacks by the Trump Administration permanent, consistent with the administration’s “America First” energy campaign. H.R. 4239, reported out of …

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Truth Will Out.

At least 3 times, the Administration has admitted the reality and dangers of climate change.

Despite all the efforts at disinformation, the Trump Administration has let the truth slip out. On four occasions, the Administration has issued or signed warnings about climate change. One is an act of Congress.  I’ll begin with the most recent and most significant example. Last Tuesday, Trump signed the Defense Authorization Act, HR 1810. The …

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The Roots of Regulatory Robustness

What makes regulations politically robust or fragile when Administrations change?

We’ve seen a lot of regulatory innovations in the past decade. Many are under attack, and that underscores the importance of understanding what makes some innovations more robust than others. I don’t have a general theory to offer about what gives some regulations more ability than others to withstand adverse political shifts. But it’s instructive …

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What’s in Trump’s Proclamations on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments

An analysis of the new proclamations and the legal issues they raise

On Monday, President Trump signed two proclamations, downsizing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. These two proclamations are the first official acts by Trump to implement the recommendations from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s national monuments review this summer. (Zinke’s final report and recommendations were just made public yesterday. In a short …

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Public Lands Watch: ANWR and Monuments Updates

Updates on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Monuments

Two updates on issues that we have been following. First, the Senate passed a tax bill that opens up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development – though an initial version of that provision which would have relaxed environmental review of development in the refuge was stripped out.  The bill likely will …

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President Trump’s national monument rollback is illegal and likely to be reversed in court

Authored by Nicholas Bryner, Eric Biber, Mark Squillace, and Sean B. Hecht

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Supporters of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments during a rally Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017 in Salt Lake City. AP Photo/Rick Bowmer On Dec. 4, President Trump traveled to Utah to sign proclamations downsizing Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent …

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Wetlands, WOTUS and California

California Regulators Can and Should Adopt Strong State Wetlands Protection Rules

For the past year, an overriding concern of many Californians has been whether and how state legislators and regulators can fill the environmental law and policy gap left by a Trump Administration that is in the process of reversing a host of Obama-era environmental rules and that has otherwise largely abandoned the field of environmental …

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It’s Official: Climate Change is Real and It’s Serious

The Administration allowed a key scientific report to come out. They’ll have trouble explaining it away.

The release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment got some attention from the press.  The press mostly focused on the forthright endorsement of climate science by the NCA4 report — something of a surprise in the anti-science Trump Administration.  That was indeed notable, but there are other features of the report that will make it …

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Public Lands Watch: Sage grouse

Interior Dept. considering revisions to protection for iconic species

The greater sage-grouse is the largest grouse species in North America, about the size of a domestic chicken.  Estimates for its historic population are that it numbered 1.1 million across the sagebrush plains throughout the Western United States and Canada.  The grouse depends on sagebrush habitat, but that habitat is declining due to a range …

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Foreseeable Yet Lamentable: Pruitt’s Attack on Carbon Restrictions

As expected, the Trump Administration is trying to repeal Obama’s regulation.

Few things were more foreseeable than a repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) by the Trump Administration. The Clean Power Plan had three strikes against it: (1) it addressed climate change; (2) it disfavored coal and promoted the use of renewable energy in electricity generation; and (3) it came from the Obama Administration. The …

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