Trump Administration
How broad does Clean Water Act 401 certification sweep?
Recent disputes over infrastructure projects highlights the importance of the question
Another issue for ping-pong governance over the past few years has been certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. For those of you who are not deep into the weeds of the Clean Water Act, Section 401 requires (a) federal agencies that are issuing licenses or permits that (b) result in discharges to …
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CONTINUE READINGThe War on Public Health Continues
Friday’s layoffs announcements at CDC targeted infectious disease control
During the COVID outbreak, President Trump said, “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.” That philosophy seems to have taken hold during his second term in office. On Friday, the Administration fired more than a thousand CDC workers, incljding the scientists and doctors who provide key information and expertise about infectious disease outbreaks. The effect is to kneecap the government’s capacity to detect and track outbreaks.
CONTINUE READINGTake Two
Trump Administration reasoning around the definition of take appears contradictory
I’ve written before about how the Trump Administration is proposing to eliminate the definition of “harm” in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations – an action that could remove protections for endangered species from habitat modification. The main justification that the Administration is relying upon in the proposal is a claim that the best interpretation …
CONTINUE READINGThe Compact for Censorship
The so-called compact is a thin front for massive incursion into free speech and academic freedom.
A key First Amendment principle prohibits the government from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. This Compact contains a string of viewpoint-based rules. That’s a threat to any view the government doesn’t like, which definitely includes a belief in climate change or the benefits of renewable energy. Because violation of the agreement triggers draconian sanctions, and the Administration is the judge of what constitutes a violation, the chilling effect will be tremendous.
CONTINUE READINGAt a Loss for Words? Resist Climate Silence
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
A few years ago, I was writing about how President Joe Biden was flying around the country to promote his landmark climate law without uttering the word “climate.” Seems so quaint. Now, we find ourselves in a place where “climate change” is on a list of banned words maintained by the U.S. Energy Department, along …
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CONTINUE READINGAfter Trump: Recreating Agencies From the Ground Up
A Game Plan for 2029
By 2029, much of the government’s top echelon – the most experienced and expert public servants — will have been forced out or will have fled the government voluntarily. The lower ranks will be depleted and demoralized. Fortunately, there are some options for moving quickly in the policy sphere. In planning for the post-Trump world, reformers will have a big advantage over exercises like Project 2025: instead of being run by ideologues, the planning process can call upon people who know how government works and who want to make it work better rather than destroying it.
CONTINUE READINGIn His Own Words: The Unitary Executive Explains Science Stuff to Us
Inside the government, the war on science seems to be over, and ignorance has won.
In the past couple of days, the President has given us the benefit of his wisdom on highly technical issues. It seems clear that, as far as the government is concerned, the war on science is over, and ignorance has won.
I’m going to let the President make my case for me. Below are excerpts of Trump’s explanations of vaccine policy, autism causation, and climate science.
CONTINUE READINGPermitting reform in the Trump Administration
It’s hard to do a deal when one side can’t be trusted to keep their side of the bargain
There’s more chatter about permitting reform again in Congress. I’m supportive of the concept, and thought the deal on the table at the end of the Biden Administration was probably worth doing. So there are now bipartisan efforts to amend NEPA, and also to do a broader permitting reform bill. I’ll leave specific analyses of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe War on Science: Week 35
Every week we get more reports about the Administration’s anti-science campaign.
It was just another week in the government’s war on science. Rather than editorialize about what’s going on, I thought it would be more useful just to relay what has come out in news reports over the last week. The facts really speak for themselves.
ITEM. On Saturday, we learned that EPA’s water division had told its scientists to pause publication of papers in scientific journals pending a “review.” The order came from political appointees. There’s little doubt that the goal is to silence scientific findings that might call Administration policies into question.
CONTINUE READINGThe perils of federal abundance legislation
Political polarization at the federal level is a steep obstacle to any major abundance reforms
I recently wrote an assessment of the ROAD Act, a bill in the US Senate that would do some (mild) changes to NEPA and develop some guidelines and incentives for state and local governments to amend their zoning to facilitate more housing production. While the ROAD Act may be fine policy, one question is whether …
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