Energy

Is USTR Trying to Increase China’s Carbon Emissions?

Our friends Daniel Firger and Michael Gerrard at Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law have written a useful new paper analyzing two important pending WTO climate cases.  Of these, the more important appears to be DS 419, in which the United States is challenging China’s wind energy subsidies. Firger and Gerrard note that …

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California Works to Promote Energy Efficiency Retrofits

California has much to brag about when it comes to energy efficiency. Per capita, the state’s residents use far less energy than our national counterparts while enjoying an equal or better standard of living, thanks to energy efficiency standards developed in the 1970s: But the state is committed to doing better. Last week, I was …

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Climate, Energy, and the Presidential Race

Michele Bachmann ripped into Tim Pawlenty last night for his past support of cap-and-trade.  “When you were governor of Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state…. you said the era of small government was over. That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama if you ask me.” Several of the other candidates have …

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The Tea Party Embraces Local Energy Efficiency Financing?

It looks like we’ve finally found an environmental issue that can attract strong bipartisan support. The PACE program allows municipal bond financing to pay for energy efficiency retrofits and solar panels, among other environmentally benign building improvements, to be repaid through property tax assessments. But the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) essentially squashed the residential …

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Deepwater Horizon But Were Afraid to Ask

NOAA has put together a very helpful bibliography of peer-reviewed research on the oil spill, Deepwater Horizon: A Preliminary Bibliography of Published Research and Expert Commentary.  It includes peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, technical reports released by scientific agencies and institutions, and editorials published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed publications and technical reports in …

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Comparing the future of marriage equality and climate change policy

A little under 15 years ago (Sept. 21, 1996) President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibited same-sex marriage for federal purposes.  Just over a year later, global negotiators agreed to the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was intended to create an international framework to control …

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The ABA versus the Environment?

The ABA House of Delegates will vote on a Resolution (Resolution 11-6) that would abolish the ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law (SCEL) at its Annual Meeting next Monday. Lesley McAllister has a posting about this over at the Environmental Law Prof blog: Resolution 11-6 would abolish SCEL and merge its functions into the Section …

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Pricing Carbon: How Would It Affect the Poor?

We need to put a price on carbon, but there is no reason why we should do so in a way that harms the poor.

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Post-Tsunami Japan Teaches the World About Energy Within Limits

Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid”.  The family lives quite comfortably – television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator.  With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all …

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California’s Role in the New Fuel Economy Standards

Dan rightly praised the good news about newly agreed to federal fuel economy standards for the 2017-2025 time frame that will reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 (though there will be a review at midpoint and a possibility for readjustment if the 54.5 mpg standard proves too tough).   In all of the press …

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