Politics
California’s Attorney General Steps Up Environmental Enforcement Efforts
A recent development worth noting is California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ increased profile when it comes to environmental enforcement. Harris, the first woman and minority Attorney General in California history, had a busy first year in office. Her razor-thin election win in November 2010 took over a month to be confirmed, delaying her transition from …
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CONTINUE READINGSelf-Reliant Moocher Hypocrites
The Shrill One has an interesting post on “self-reliant moochers,” i.e. those states (and voters) who loudly proclaim their flinty self-reliance and then rely on government transfers. Turns out that conservative states rely much more heavily on government transfers than Blue staters supposedly addicted to the “cradle-to-grave assurance government will always be the solution.” …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy the Right Has Run Out of Ideas
Most policy tools are no longer considered acceptable by many on the Right. If you have no tools to solve a problem, all you can do politically is to insist that the problem does not exist, is really a blessing in disguise, or will be automatically solved by the market and technological progress.
CONTINUE READINGSenator Santorum and the Environmental Chalice of Evil
Here is what Santorum said yesterday (from Politico): “You hear all the time, the left: ‘Oh, the conservatives are the anti-science party.’ No we’re not. We’re the truth party,” the former Pennsylvania senator said at a campaign event in Oklahoma City. “Because the left is always looking for a way to control you. They’re always …
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CONTINUE READINGInsurance Salesmen Should Be Selling The Public On Climate Change
As Dan’s post described, the insurance industry has a major, profit-driven stake in stopping climate change. So given the high risks for these private companies as the Earth bakes, why aren’t they the public face of the need to stop climate change, instead of controversial figures like Al Gore, environmental leaders, and scientists? Wouldn’t the …
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CONTINUE READINGRanking the Presidents on the Environment
Keith Poole has spent years devising measures of political ideology. The late Phil Frickey and I used his scholarship in our work on public choice theory. He has now produced similar information about Presidents, incorporated in the following chart: It would be useful to have a similar measure for environmental policy. The early part of …
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CONTINUE READINGNo Free Lunch In The Desert
A tough, heartbreaking story from the Los Angeles Times about the painful choices environmentalists are faced with in combatting climate change. The issue is BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah solar power project, a massive, 6-square-mile city of 173,500 mirrors that will scar much of California’s desert beyond recognition. This was a hard compromise, reports Julie Cart, as “the …
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CONTINUE READINGInformation or Ideology? The Dilemmas of a Property Professor
It often occurs in teaching law school classes that opportunities present themselves for discussing current issues. And that presents a problem: how can a teacher do it without engaging in ideological indoctrination? The easiest way is to avoid the issue entirely. But is that also avoiding the responsibility to actually address important topics? I ran …
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CONTINUE READINGInitiative Watch: The Polluter Accountability Act
California’s Legislature did manage last year to stanch some of the state’s initiative craziness when it passed a law mandating that all initiative appear on the general election ballot, not the primary ballot. Now, our ballot “pamphlets” won’t resemble a phone book every election. (The fact that general elections get higher turnout, and thus tend to …
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CONTINUE READINGAmbivalence Toward Environmental Scientists
Two seemingly unrelated stories on the NY Times webpage reveal the strangely conflicted place of scientists in today’s society. One story reveals our respect for those who, despite difficult circumstances, dedicate themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. That story is about Samantha Garvey, a homeless teenager who has found recognition for her study of the …
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