Democracy
Our Information Ecosystem is Toxic. But We Can Clean It Up
The Drain is a roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Amy Westervelt’s new book “Brought To You By” is not about the climate crisis so much as it is about our overarching, inextricable information crisis that makes climate change that much harder to address. The book lays out in great detail how our information ecosystem has become as devastatingly polluted as any toxic sewer …
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CONTINUE READINGWould You Believe That, by Law, Renewables are a National Defense Priority?
Support for Clean Energy from an Unexpected Direction
The National Defense Act was a Korean war measure. As behooves a wartime law, it seems to contemplate fairly heavy-handed economic control by the government. (If we were ever to get a truly socialist president, they’d do well to give the DPA a careful read.) Even though it’s been amended since then, it’s not a …
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CONTINUE READINGGorsuch is (Partly) Right
Justice Gorsuch is wrong about the cure, but delegation has gotten out of hand.
Justice Gorsuch has made it a personal crusade to revive the nondelegation doctrine, in part because of concerns about the rising tide of presidential power. The nondelegation doctrine tries to limit the ability of Congress to delegate authority to the executive branch. That’s an unworkable solution, but Gorsuch is right that Congress has put far too much trust in the good faith and sound judgment of the President and his subordinates. That’s especially true of national security and emergency powers.
CONTINUE READINGThe National Security Scam
Just about everything gets labeled an emergency or national security threat these days. The courts may be starting to catch on.
The Trump Administration invokes national security and declares national emergencies to justify all manner of actions such as excusing violation of environmental laws. Past Administrations have gotten strong deference for their emergency claims. But this one may be quickly using up its credibility. You can pass a certain number of counterfeit bills, but a flood of counterfeits is hard to hide.
CONTINUE READINGStrictly Ballroom
How will the Supreme Court’s opinion impact environmental standing?
There’s a lot of concern about how the Supreme Court’s opinion in the ballroom case could impact environmental law. In the majority’s view, the problem was that the plaintiff lacked standing. The concern is that the Court may have cut back standing doctrine in a way that will block many environmental cases. You never know what the Court might do down the road, but I think the opinion itself is much more limited.
CONTINUE READINGThe Environment Dies in Darkness
Suppressing the rights of free speech and association is deadly to environmental protection.
It’s not a coincidence that the title of this post is taken from what used to be the motto for the Washington Post until its billionaire owner decided that democracy was not, after all, a priority. Because of the inherently collective nature of environmental protection, democracy and environmental protection are inseparable. The government’s efforts to suppress opponents have a cumulative effect, creating a climate of repression. If we want to fight global warming, we also need to fight the chilling effects of repression on First Amendment freedoms.
Does More Energy Reporting = Less Climate Reporting?
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
If you are one of the many loyal readers of E&E News, big change is coming to your daily routine. POLITICO announced it is shuttering E&E, the standalone, subscription-based reporting outfit that it bought in 2020. “Beginning in September, we are modernizing how we deliver our energy and environmental policy journalism and launching a …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy Does the Trump Administration Keeping Attacking Science?
Apparently, the Administration views science as fatally infected with woke ideas and lacking much other value.
Make no mistake, the Trump Administration is engaged in a serious, carefully honed, effort to undermine American science. The National Science Foundation has lost a third of its staff, while the National Institutes of Health have lost 20%. EPA’s science office is being shuttered. Trump’s proposed budget included a 54% cut for NSF, 12% for NIH, and 46% for NASA’s space research. And last week, the government proposed changes to politicize research funding decisions at the expense of merit review. It also proposes making continuation of long-term funding dependent on political whim, which will drive researchers away from projects taking longer commitments.
CONTINUE READINGStatutory Language? Who Cares About Statutory Language?
A new DOE guidance seems flatly contrary to the statute it’s acting under.
The Department of Energy has issued new guidance that cuts off rebates for people who replace a gas furnace with a heat pump. Under the new guidance, the rebate will be allowed only if the heat pump replaces an electric furnace. Unless I’m missing something, the statute creating the program says the exact opposite. I suppose maybe at this stage I should find this blithe lack of concern for legality unsurprising. Maybe I haven’t adjusted to the Trump era as much as I’d thought. The rebate program specifically covers “any “project that includes [among other things] … the purchase or installation … of an electric heat pump … to replace a nonelectric appliance.”
New Issue Brief: Community Engagement in Equity-Oriented EV Planning
Examining lessons from the Monterey Bay EV CAR Framework.
As federal support for the EV transition recedes, state and local planning processes are playing an increasingly central role in shaping equitable access to clean mobility infrastructure. Community engagement is a critical component of these efforts, yet relatively few case studies document how equity-oriented engagement processes work in practice. CLEE has released a new issue …
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