Pollution & Health
The Environmental Issue in the Presidential Race
With the partial exception of Mitt Romney, all of the Republican presidential candidates are negative about EPA. According to the NY TImes, Opposition to regulation and skepticism about climate change have become tenets of Republican orthodoxy, but they are embraced with extraordinary intensity this year because of the faltering economy, high fuel prices, the Tea …
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CONTINUE READINGMore on California Environmental Leader & Coastal Advocate Peter Douglas
Legal Planet colleague Jonathan Zasloff has previously written about the recently-announced retirement of long-time California Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas. I’d like to add a few additional comments about Peter, my long-time mentor, client and friend. Peter Douglas has devoted the past four decades of his incredibly rich and active life to the cause of …
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CONTINUE READINGEverything You Wanted to Know About Deepwater Horizon But Were Afraid to Ask
NOAA has put together a very helpful bibliography of peer-reviewed research on the oil spill, Deepwater Horizon: A Preliminary Bibliography of Published Research and Expert Commentary. It includes peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, technical reports released by scientific agencies and institutions, and editorials published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed publications and technical reports in …
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CONTINUE READINGChina and the Environment: Some Progress on Lead Pollution
It’s a pleasure to be joining the excellent group here at Legal Planet. My focus will largely be on issues related to China and its environmental and energy challenges. I returned to the U.S. last month after seven years working in China on environmental protection and legal reform (mostly for the Natural Resources Defense Council). …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA to Continue Emissions Trading in Place of Clean Air Interstate Rule
With the success of the 1990 cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide (the major cause of acid rain), cap and trade has become one of the dominant regulatory means to control air pollution in the U.S. And, of course, cap and trade remains one of the central mechanisms to control greenhouse gases in those …
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CONTINUE READINGNew nonprofit Harbor Community Benefit Foundation launches, seeks Executive Director to oversee millions of dollars in community benefits projects in Los Angeles’s near-port communities
A historic agreement between the Port of Los Angeles and various stakeholders has resulted in the founding of a new nonprofit organization, the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation. HCBF’s mission is “to carry out mitigation and other public benefit projects that assess, protect, and improve health, quality of life, and the natural environment, with a focus …
CONTINUE READINGMillenium Development Goals Report 2011
We’re a little late on this, but early last month the United Nations issued its 2011 Millenium Development Goals report, which really should be at the top of the environmental community’s focus. Usually, the MDGs are thought of simply as concerning poverty and development, but of course these issues deeply concern the environment. More directly, although not …
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CONTINUE READINGSome Good News, For a Change
The NY Times reports: On Friday, when President Obama is scheduled to announce even stricter standards — in fact, the largest increase in mileage requirements since the government began regulating consumption of gasoline by cars in the 1970s — the chief executives of Detroit’s Big Three are expected to be in Washington again. But this …
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CONTINUE READINGBring Out Your Dead!
For instance, if you’ve been married five times, and each of the five spouses has drowned in the bathtub soon after writing a will in your favor, that “statistical” evidence is enough for a conviction. Similarly, if hospital admissions and ER visits for asthma go up on days when air pollution spikes, it would be irresponsible for the government to ignore that evidence.
CONTINUE READINGBut Will You Love My Energy Source in the Morning?
In the wake of cataclysmic energy disasters occurring on opposite sides of the globe, some interesting regional and national reflections are currently underway that may–or may not–alter long-term energy futures in the U.S. and abroad. One development this week that drew surprisingly little public attention is that no less a personage than the Prime Minister of …
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