Pollution & Health
TMDL Fight Brewing in Chesapeake Bay
On December 29, 2010, EPA finalized a plan to reduce nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay by implementing a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) budget using its Clean Water Act authority. That plan will require a 25% reduction in nitrogen, a 24% reduction in phosphorus and a 20% reduction in sediment throughout the watershed. This includes …
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CONTINUE READINGScholastic drops industry-funded pro-coal 4th-grade curriculum, but still maintains other programs that threaten public health
Last week, I posted an item about Scholastic, Inc.’s partnership with the coal industry to produce “The United States of Energy,” an energy curriculum that promoted coal without disclosing its considerable public-health and environmental drawbacks. The controversy over this partnership, publicized widely by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, went as far as a chiding …
CONTINUE READINGScholastic, Inc. publishes pro-coal curriculum for fourth graders, apparently paid for by coal industry
Yesterday, I wrote about a satirical campaign in which anti-coal activists spoofed a Peabody Energy website in order to publicize the link between burning coal and childhood asthma. The satirical campaign included fake child-oriented games and discounted asthma inhalers. But all satire aside, the coal industry really is marketing its product directly to children. The …
CONTINUE READINGAnti-coal satire (with My First Inhaler) punks Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy — last seen on this blog as the real party in interest whose proposal to mine more coal on Indian land in Arizona had to go back to the drawing board because of this UCLA environmental law clinic case , and immortalized in the John Prine song “Paradise” — has been punked. (I’ve …
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CONTINUE READINGThe story of the Price-Anderson Act: how Congress made nuclear power financially viable in the U.S. by eliminating accountability for risk
Ever wonder how nuclear power plants have been able to get financial backing in the U.S. despite the huge, and largely uncertain, potential risks they pose? Or why there are nuclear plants within a few hours’ drive of major population centers such as Los Angeles and New York? Or who will pay the costs that …
CONTINUE READINGCan Six-year-olds Understand the Tragedy of the Commons?
Maybe not. But perhaps eight-year-olds can. Last Wednesday morning, I showed up for my weekly library volunteering at my daughter’s first grade class. School cutbacks meant that the librarian wasn’t there, so the teacher, another parent and I had to make do. The display was about Earth Day, since I had to find a book to read …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Do Environmental Law Scholars Write About?
Some of our readers who aren’t in law schools probably wonder what environmental law professors actually do. (Some of our readers who are in law schools might be wondering the same thing!). I thought it might be helpful to provide a sample of recent scholarship. Here are recent lists of working papers from SSRN.com, which …
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CONTINUE READINGRemembering Rachel Carson
Earth Day seems an appropriate time to recall past leaders in environmental thought. Few have played a greater role in the development of U.S. environmental law than Rachel Carson (1907-1964), whose books did much to spark the environmental movement. It is good to hear that her books have been reprinted as ebooks by Open Road …
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CONTINUE READINGDamage Control for the States: Predicting the Outcome in AEP v. Connecticut
Yesterday I previewed Tuesday’s oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court’s American Electric Power v. Connecticut case, and two of my Legal Planet colleagues have already posted comments on certain aspects of those arguments. But let me cast discretion to the wind and predict the outcome of the case. Actually, it’s not that difficult a …
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CONTINUE READINGReading the Mary Nichols (carbon) tea leaves
It’s undoubtedly dangerous to try to read too much into short media quotes. But Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, is in a better position than most to judge (and to influence) the political winds on the future of the State’s cap-and-trade program. Here’s her latest public statement on the issue, made during an appearance last …
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