Pollution & Health
New journal issue on using the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions
UCLA’s Journal of Environmental Law and Policy has just published its current issue, Volume 30, with all its content available free online in pdf format. This volume is a special symposium issue, featuring articles relating to the use of the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions. Several of the articles’ authors were speakers …
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CONTINUE READINGA Side-by-Side Comparison of Romney and Obama on Energy and Environment
I’ve put together a table of language from the issues sections of the official campaign websites dealing with energy and environment. I decided to use the candidate’s own language to avoid interposing my own views on the issues. Please keep in mind that the table uses their language, not mine. Not surprisingly, the candidates frame …
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CONTINUE READINGCoal, China, and Pollution
Air pollution in China is a global problem, because of climate change, and a California problem, because pollutants from China reach the U.S. West Coast. An article in the current issue of Nature has good news and bad news about coal and pollution in China. The good news is increased pollution control. The authors estimate …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Opinion on Environment and Energy
Gallup has issued the results of a very interesting poll about environment and energy. Here are their findings: There’s surprisingly broad support for more vigorous environmental enforcement and more clean energy, including about half of Republicans. The reason for the partisan gap is that there’s such strong support among Democrats, not so much that all …
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CONTINUE READINGCould Self-Driving Cars Help The Environment?
As companies like Google pioneer technologies to allow cars to drive themselves, futurists have been imagining a world where autonomous vehicles rule the roadway. Using computer programs, map data, complex sensors, and soon the ability to “see” all vehicles within miles, these cars hold the promise of averting the vast majority of car accidents caused …
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CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis Issues Nitrates in Drinking Water Study
The University of California at Davis has issued an important new study assessing the public health hazards associated with nitrates in California drinking water. The study, led by U.C. Davis Professors Thomas Harter and Jay Lund, contains some important and disturbing findings. The full study can be found here, the Executive Summary here. The new …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Supreme Court Strikes Down the Clean Air Act
Not, not really. Not yet. Dan is a much more generous person than I am, and so it should be unsurprising that he believes that the Affordable Care Act cases do not threaten environmental law. I respectfully dissent. The Affordable Care Act seeks to establish laws for the health insurance industry — an industry that …
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CONTINUE READINGPollution markets haven’t stimulated innovation
One of the early claims in favor of a cap-and-trade approach to pollution control, as opposed to traditional command-and-control innovation, was that market incentives would better encourage innovation in pollution control techniques and technologies. On the other hand, legal scholars such as David Driesen have long contended that pollution markets can actually reduce innovation incentives. …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Sides With Property Owners in Wetlands Dispute With USEPA
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the most closely watched environmental case on the Court’s docket this Term: Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As expected following an especially lively set of oral arguments in the Sackett case earlier this year, the justices ruled–unanimously–in favor of the private property owners who had brought …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy did EPA tackle interstate air pollution?
In my last post, I noted that one reason for the recent GOP backlash against the EPA has been the Bush and Obama Administrations’ surprising efforts to tackle a politically difficult subject: interstate air pollution. One question is why an environmental problem that for many years was a political loser finally got the attention it …
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