Trump Administration
200 Days & Counting: Environmental Threat Assessment
The Trump Administration presents a barrage of threats to the environment. Which threats are worst?
This is the last in our series on the state of play concerning U.S. environmental protection at this point of the Trump Administration. We can classify threats along three dimensions: the likelihood of harm, the seriousness and irreversibility of the harm, and the irreversibility of the institutional or legal change. Here’s an assessment of our …
Continue reading “200 Days & Counting: Environmental Threat Assessment”
CONTINUE READING200 Days and Counting: Budget
What are the implications of changes to the federal budget for environmental law?
The Trump Administration has proposed draconian cuts to a range of environmental and science agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, NASA’s climate science work, and NOAA’s science and regulatory programs. Here we’ll talk about the potential implications of dramatic budget cuts, and then the likelihood they will occur, at least for …
Continue reading “200 Days and Counting: Budget”
CONTINUE READING200 Days and Counting: Legislation
What are the prospects for major environmental legislation in the near future?
From the perspective of environmental law, one of the most important questions is whether full Republican control of Congress and the White House would lead to fundamental changes to significant environmental laws. These are the kinds of changes that would be most important over the long-run, from a legal perspective. Laws are hard to pass …
Continue reading “200 Days and Counting: Legislation”
CONTINUE READING200 Days and Counting: Intro
The start of a series on the future of environmental law after 200 days of the Trump Administration
As of August 6, President Trump has been in office for 200 days. When he was elected and inaugurated, there was a great deal of concern about what his Presidency might mean for environmental law. We’ve now gone about 1/8 through his first-term, so we have a little better sense of what the future might …
Continue reading “200 Days and Counting: Intro”
CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Proposed repeal of BLM fracking rule
BLM Proposes to Rescind 2015 Rule on Hydraulic Fracturing
On July 25, 2017 the Bureau of Land Management published in the Federal Register a proposed rule that would rescind the Obama Administration’s 2015 Rule titled “Oil and Gas; Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands.” This proposal has been anticipated since the Interior Department announced in March earlier this year that the Department intended …
Continue reading “Public Lands Watch: Proposed repeal of BLM fracking rule”
CONTINUE READINGNational Monuments: a Rebuttal to Commentators who Support Trump’s Actions to Undo Public Lands Protections
This post is co-authored with Sean Hecht. For the past three months, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has been reviewing some of the national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act by Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Since the end of last year, we and others at Legal Planet have been writing on the scope …
CONTINUE READINGThere Once Was a Man From Trump Tower . . .
Some commentary of a lighter sort.
Here are a few diversions for a warm summer morning. I hope you enjoy them. A Man Called Scott Pruitt There once was a man called Scott Pruitt, Who said, “Why, there’s nothing to it! “You undo all the regs, “Cut them off at the legs, And tell all the polluters, ‘go to it!’” …
Continue reading “There Once Was a Man From Trump Tower . . .”
CONTINUE READINGDid Trump Just Accidentally Endorse Climate Action?
There’s a hidden zinger in the G-20 statement about curtailing greenhouse gases.
It escaped everyone’s notice, possibly including the U.S. delegation, but buried in the G-20 Declaration is an endorsement of the need to cut greenhouse gases. This paragraph precedes the two reflecting disagreements about the Paris Agreement, and this particular paragraph purports to reflect the views of all twenty leaders, including Trump. There are three paragraphs …
Continue reading “Did Trump Just Accidentally Endorse Climate Action?”
CONTINUE READINGThe Dangerous Politics of Nostalgia
It’s a good idea to look in the direction you’re traveling, not backwards to your past.
In an airport, I recently saw a sign above the moving walkway advising us to face in the direction we were traveling. That’s sound advice for life in general and policy making in particular. It’s a recipe for failure to try to restore the past rather than looking toward the future. Unfortunately, rather than embracing the future, …
Continue reading “The Dangerous Politics of Nostalgia”
CONTINUE READINGWhat Happens if the U.S. Remains in the Paris Agreement?
How does an Administration that has Repudiated Climate Change and Climate Policy Respond?
Although I have previously argued that we might be better off if the Trump Administration withdraws from the Paris Agreement, the odds seem higher that Trump will choose to remain in. He can appease his daughter and son-in-law, appear to be reasonable, and give up very little by remaining in. If he makes this …
Continue reading “What Happens if the U.S. Remains in the Paris Agreement?”
CONTINUE READING