Energy
When gas pipelines explode, who is at fault?
It is almost a year since a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California killed 8 people and destroyed 38 homes, and the National Transportation Safety Board has now issued it report. The Board found that pipeline owner Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), as well as state and federal regulators, were responsible for …
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CONTINUE READINGIs Cap and Trade Unfair?
I should probably start by putting my cards on the table. I’m not really an advocate of cap and trade as compared with other forms of regulation. What I care about is getting effective carbon restrictions in place, whether they take the form of cap and trade, a carbon tax, industry-wide regulations, or something …
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CONTINUE READINGA Judicial Win for PACE Clean Energy Financing
Finally, some good news from the courts for advocates of PACE financing for energy efficiency and renewables. Federal Judge Claudia Wilken in the Northern District of California issued a ruling late Friday on the Federal Housing Finance Authority’s (FHFA) motion to dismiss a challenge from the Sierra Club, Placer and Sonoma Counties, Palm Desert, and …
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CONTINUE READINGLost in the Ozone Again
Should Perry get credit for any recent downward trend ozone?The State’s reported downward trend in ozone levels began in 2006 at the earliest, whereas Perry took office in 2000 when Bush resigned.
CONTINUE READINGIs 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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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia 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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CONTINUE READINGClimate, 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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CONTINUE READINGThe 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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CONTINUE READINGEverything 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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CONTINUE READINGComparing 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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