Politics
(What Remains Of) The Conservative Mind Melts Down
Once upon a time, George Will had a reputation as the thinking person’s conservative. No more. He’s not only a climate denier, but a couple of weeks ago he smeared Elizabeth Warren with a kind of red-baiting that I haven’t seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now he’s at it again, sort of. …
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CONTINUE READINGPeet’s Coffee Thinks You’re Stupid
…or at least not very important. Following up on my posts concerning Peet’s membership on the California Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors (here and here; Eric follows up with a left hook here), another one of our intrepid readers e-mailed Peet’s to get an explanation. Here’s what the reader got back: Peet’s is one of …
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CONTINUE READINGIf Cost-Benefit Analysis is Good, Is More Cost-Benefit Analysis Always Better?
Presidential and congressional requirements for cost-benefit analysis should also recognize that
data availability may be an implementation issue, and that additional resources may be necessary
for the agencies conducting these analyses. In some cases, the data that agencies need to estimate
the costs and benefits of their rules may not exist, or may only be available from regulated
entities.128 Although there is no “typical” cost-benefit analysis (just as there is no “typical” rule),
the cost of conducting many individual regulatory analyses has been in the hundreds of thousands
of dollars.129 If more agencies are required to prepare more detailed analyses for more rules, it is
unclear how the agencies will be able to do so without more resources.130 As noted earlier in this
report, if agencies are required to prepare cost-benefit analyses for rules that are not expected to
Deploying Large-Scale Solar on Marginal Agricultural Land: A New Berkeley / UCLA White Paper
With California committed to achieving 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, some solar and wind developers are rushing to propose large-scale installations on California farmland. These sites can be attractive because they are close to existing transmission lines and substations and have good sun exposure. However, proposed projects on farmland tend …
CONTINUE READINGPeet’s Coffee’s Weak Attempts to Rebut Greenwashing Charges
An energetic reader noticed my post last week on Peet’s Coffee’s seeming alliance with the California Chamber of Commerce, the most reactionary anti-environmental force in state politics. He forwarded it to Peet’s PR department and demanded an explanation. Here’s what he got back: We’re disturbed by the blog posting you sent to us which “effectively” …
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CONTINUE READINGDealing with Escalating Global Resource Demands
Matthew Yglisias has a generally free market orientation and doesn’t usually focus on environmental issues. He recently had a very interesting posting, however, about a problem that U.S. policymakers need to start thinking about: Over time, we’ve seen more and more countries engage in spurts of “catch-up” growth in which they rapidly narrow the gap …
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CONTINUE READINGWhen Did “GOP” Start to Mean “Grand Old Polluters”?
I’m old enough to remember a time when environmental protection and public health were bipartisan values. Even in the Reagan Administration, there were positive steps such as Reagan’s support for the international ozone treaty. As late as 1990, Republicans in the White House and Congress supported major new air pollution legislation. Even George W. Bush …
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CONTINUE READINGMore Oil and Coal, Less Nature and Clean Air
USA Today reports on a speech Perry is set to deliver about energy issues. It’s a humdinger. Here are the main points: •Open federal lands to more energy exploration and production, including ANWAR and lands in the Mountain West – but not the Everglades, a tribute to Florida as a primary state. More offshore drilling …
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CONTINUE READINGCall for Nominations: The Five Best Environmental Presidents
About three months ago, my friend Michael Cohen wrote a piece for the Atlantic arguing who were the five best and worst foreign policy presidents of the last century. It got a good bit of well-deserved play in the blogosphere. So what if we tried to do it for environmental policy? The immediate problem is that environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGIs Your Coffee Destroying California’s Environment?
If you’re looking for the leading anti-environmental organization in California politics, it’s not hard to find: it’s the California Chamber of Commerce. Like its counterpart at the national level (subject of this outstanding Washington Monthly profile), the state chamber is a reliable water carrier for the interests of the ideological right wing. It provides …
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