Academia
Pollution markets haven’t stimulated innovation
One of the early claims in favor of a cap-and-trade approach to pollution control, as opposed to traditional command-and-control innovation, was that market incentives would better encourage innovation in pollution control techniques and technologies. On the other hand, legal scholars such as David Driesen have long contended that pollution markets can actually reduce innovation incentives. …
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CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Law Programs in the Midwest and Mountain States
This is the second in a series of postings about public service by environmental law programs. This one focuses on the Midwest and Mountain states. Here is a sample of current activities: An environmental advocacy center that works on clean air and water, clean up of hazardous waste sites, safe drinking water, green technology, climate …
CONTINUE READINGA new issue of Ecology Law Quarterly
ELQ has just published Volume 38, number 3, featuring papers from a takings symposium. Check out these articles: J. Peter Byrne, Stop the Stop the Beach Plurality! John D. Echeverria, Public Takings of Private Contracts Cecilia Fex, The Elements of Liability in a Trails Act Taking: A Guide to the Analysis Marc Mihaly & Turner …
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CONTINUE READINGUrban Vibrancy and Shrinking the Household Carbon Footprint from Transportation
Professor Matthew Holian and I have released a new report that was funded by the Mineta Transport Institute. Using several data sets, we present a statistical analysis of an intuitive hypothesis. Consider a metropolitan area such as Los Angeles or San Diego. If the downtown is “vibrant” in terms of jobs and nightlife and culture, …
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CONTINUE READINGJeremy Bentham and Polar Bears
Over at the Reality-Based Community, my co-blogger James Wimberley rightfully takes to task a right-wing economist named Karl Smith for what Wimberley calls the dumbest blog post of 2011. Smith essentially seems to argue that it’s okay to cause hundreds of species to become extinct because it will increase aggregate wealth in the short run. In doing …
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CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Programs in the South
I’ve been struck by how much environmental law programs are doing to advance the public interest. Without purporting to do a complete survey, I thought it would still be illuminating to provide five or ten examples from different parts of the country. Today, I’m going to start with the South. Although the South is probably …
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CONTINUE READING“Female Roommate Wanted”
It’s a fairly standard advertisement. But for years, many scholars and lawyers have thought it constitutes illegal sex discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. In Fair Housing Council v. roommate.com, a recent opinion by Alex Kozinski and joined by Stephen Reinhardt (so there’s your first surprise), the 9th Circuit has said that such ads are permissible. I realize …
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CONTINUE READINGEnergy Scholarship Symposium in the Journal of Economic Perspectives
As I argued about three months ago, the Journal of Economic Perspectives ought to be on the regular reading for anyone interested in environmental law and policy. The most recent quarter’s issue shows why: it features a fascinating symposium on “Energy Challenges”. Not all of the articles will be music to environmentalists’ ears: for example, …
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CONTINUE READINGMonsieur Fouche, Meet Professor Gleick
By now, Peter Gleick’s ethical indiscretions concerning the Heartland Institute are old news. But for lawyers, they raise particularly interesting ethical issues because they highlight the question of really, whether there were ethical barriers broached at all. I initially thought that this was obviously the case: someone in my profession would get disbarred for doing …
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CONTINUE READINGBerkeley Environmental Alum to Head Vermont Law School
We’re delighted to report that Marc Mihaly, a graduate of Berkeley Law School, will be the next dean of Vermont Law School. Before his move to Vermont, he was a partner at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, a law firm specializing in government, land use, natural resource and environmental law. Vermont is best-known for its environmental …
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