Land Use
Decriminalizing Our Public Lands
According to media reports, government fire investigations reveal that the recent, extensive brush fires that have destroyed nearly 100,000 acres in Santa Barbara County, California, were ignited as a result of illegal marijuana operations being conducted on federal forest lands. As news accounts point out, clandestine drug operations carried out on public lands may be …
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CONTINUE READINGFastrack to Nowhere?
President Obama has announced a commitment to high speed rail, envisioning a network that could: connect areas like the cities of the Pacific Northwest; southern and central Florida; the Gulf Coast to the Southeast to our nation’s capital; the breadth of Pennsylvania and New York to the cities of New England; and something close to …
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CONTINUE READINGMeat and climate change redux
Back in January, I blogged about the link between meat production and GHGs. Grist.org has taken up this issue recently, with an interesting article by Tom Philpott making the case that U.S. livestock production is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, and a rebuttal from farmer Eliot Coleman. As Philpott’s article notes, a U.N. FAO …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Integrated Waste Management Board: Goodbye and Good Riddance
Shortly after taking office as California’s Governor, following a tumultuous recall election in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger famously promised to “blow up the boxes” of state government in favor of a more streamlined governance structure. That commitment has since largely been sacrificed on the alter of ever-contentious California politics. But this summer’s belated and painfully-negotiated California …
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CONTINUE READINGNudging Smart Growth
There are lots of problems with Sunstein and Thaler’s book Nudge, but its central premise has potentially powerful applications to a host of problems. Sunstein and Thaler posit that in many policy areas, “choice architects” can help people make better choices without impairing their actual ability to make that choice — a philosophy that they call …
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CONTINUE READINGProposed Order on Floodplain Development
The White House is considering a new executive order to limit floodplain development. The proposal covers roughly the same federal licensing, project, and funding decisions as NEPA. The heart of the proposal is section 4, which unlike NEPA imposes a substantive requirement (preventing or mitigating floodplain development.) The proposed language is after the jump. This …
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CONTINUE READINGEdith Jones Declares War on America’s Coastline
Edith Jones, the 5th Circuit Chief Judge who makes wingnuts swoon, is at it again, this time in Severance v. Patterson, a Takings test case brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation. For environmentalists, Severance is also a test case in who is going to have to pay for coastal damage from climate change. Edith Jones …
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CONTINUE READINGNAFTA gold mining opinion upholding California environmental regulation issued by arbitration tribunal
As I previously discussed in detail in this post, a NAFTA arbitration tribunal recently decided a closely-watched case in a way that will further environmental protection. The panel’s 355-page opinion in the Glamis Gold case has been made public: here it is. The panel decided in favor of California’s right to regulate in-state mining by foreign …
CONTINUE READINGIs Waxman-Markey Even Worth It?
If Michael O’Hare is right about this, then Waxman-Markey might not be worth the candle: Waxman appears to have sold out the indirect land use issue in a deal with Peterson on the climate change bill: “Waxman also consented to block EPA from calculating “indirect” greenhouse gas emissions from land-use changes when implementing the federal …
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CONTINUE READINGNAFTA tribunal strikes a blow for mining regulation by U.S. states
The U.S. and the State of California have been cleared of liability in a widely-watched NAFTA case involving mining regulations. A foreign mining company challenged the legality of California regulations that prevented a proposed environmentally- and culturally-destructive gold mine from being built in California’s Imperial Valley. The company, Glamis Gold Ltd, a Canadian company …
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