Health
The Epstein Affair
A prominent law prof got COVID-19 numbers disastrously wrong. Then things got worse.
The New Yorker recently published a devastating interview with law professor Richard Epstein. He had attracted their notice by publishing two columns on the Hoover Institution website, the first projecting a total of 500 U.S. deaths from the coronavirus (later raised to 5000), and the second defending his work. I don’t see any need to …
Continue reading “The Epstein Affair”
CONTINUE READINGTransit-Oriented Development Shouldn’t Be A Coronavirus Casualty
California still needs more housing close to transit.
In recent weeks, California has emerged as one center of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it continues to face challenges that existed long before the disease reached the state. Two serious ones: how California will meet its ever more stringent greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and how the state will manage to provide affordable housing for …
Continue reading “Transit-Oriented Development Shouldn’t Be A Coronavirus Casualty”
CONTINUE READINGThe Environmental Pollution Agency Prioritizes Environmental Rollbacks While Dropping Environmental Enforcement
New Policy Allows Companies to Use Covid-19 As an Excuse to Pollute
The covid-19 epidemic is providing the Environmental Protection Agency with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its priorities: full speed ahead with environmental roll backs, including greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards for cars, cutting back on the regulation of mercury from power plants, loosening regulations on coal ash from coal plants and more. Employees at EPA have …
CONTINUE READINGHow the Coronavirus is (Not) Like Climate Change
The two have some informative parallels, although some observers draw the wrong conclusions
The coronavirus dominates the news and much of our minds. Here at Legal Planet, we have written about the coronavirus and presidential powers, disaster declarations, fossil fuel production, decision-making under uncertainty, inequality, and cities. I will join the party and consider what are the parallels and differences between the coronavirus crisis and anthropogenic climate change, …
Continue reading “How the Coronavirus is (Not) Like Climate Change”
CONTINUE READINGFederalism and the Pandemic
For statutory, practical, and constitutional reasons, states are on the front line.
The states have been out in front in dealing with the coronavirus. Apart from Trump’s tardy response to the crisis, there are reasons for this, involving limits on Trump’s authority, practicalities, and constitutional rulings. Statutory limits. As I discussed in a previous post, the President’s power to deal with an epidemic is mostly derived from …
Continue reading “Federalism and the Pandemic”
CONTINUE READINGAre Pandemics An Argument Against Cities?
COVID-19 spread shows governance matters more than density
With the COVID-19 virus shutting down cities and countries all over the world, anti-urban advocates are seizing the moment to argue that pandemics prove urban density is bad. For example, longtime sprawl booster Joel Kotkin argues that shelter-in-place orders and fear of contagion will push people to demand more lower-density homes, far from crowded and …
Continue reading “Are Pandemics An Argument Against Cities?”
CONTINUE READINGUncertainty in the Age of Coronavirus
There’s a lot we don’t know at this point. How should we deal with that?
Knowledge about the coronavirus is limited but growing. In the meantime, how should we cope with this uncertainty? I can’t give you psychological advice, but I can say something about how to think about this uncertainty. How to make decisions under uncertainty is something we know a lot about from the environmental sphere. Uncertainty is …
Continue reading “Uncertainty in the Age of Coronavirus”
CONTINUE READINGGlobal Crisis and the Urgency of Phasing Out Oil and Gas Production
Considering long-term climate needs in near-term crisis responses
As the covid-19 crisis threatens a global recession and sharply cuts travel demand, compounding the damage caused by the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, US and international oil prices are hitting historic lows, driving turmoil throughout the industry and threatening a rash of bankruptcies, stranded projects, and job losses. These recent developments …
Continue reading “Global Crisis and the Urgency of Phasing Out Oil and Gas Production”
CONTINUE READINGIs a Pandemic a Major Disaster?
Cuomo has asked for major disaster relief. But there’s a serious legal hurdle to that.
Yesterday, I wrote about presidential powers in a pandemic. I mentioned the possibility of declaring the pandemic a major disaster under the Stafford Act. Today, we learned that Gov. Cuomo of New York has made such a request. [Note: two days after this was written, FEMA granted the request.] What does the law have to …
Continue reading “Is a Pandemic a Major Disaster?”
CONTINUE READINGPresidential Power in a Pandemic
The President does have considerable power, but there are serious limitations.
Now that Trump has belatedly declared a national emergency, what powers does he have to respond to the coronavirus pandemic? There has been a lot of talk about this on the Internet, some of it off-base. it’s important to get the law straight. For instance, there’s been talk about whether Trump should impose a national …
Continue reading “Presidential Power in a Pandemic”
CONTINUE READING