Pollution & Health

UCLA environmental law journal publishes new work on personal norms and carbon emissions, and on other interesting topics

Following in Dan’s footsteps as promoters of our respective schools’ excellent environmental law journals, I’m proud to announce that the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy Volume 27, #1 was published this summer. This journal issue features several interesting pieces.  They include a thought-provoking Comment by second-year UCLA law student Jed Ela, Law and Norms …

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More on the Chamber of Commerce’s extraordinary demand for a “Scopes trial” on climate change

UPDATE: regarding the standard of judicial review of any on-the-record hearing (discussed below), see the comments: commenter Steve Taber disagrees with my initial analysis, and he may be right (though I don’t have time to look into it further today). ORIGINAL POST: Holly has written a thoughtful post discussing the meritlessness and cynicism of the …

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Atrazine in drinking water

Atrazine is suddenly very much in the news. Today’s New York Times features a major story about whether the EPA’s current standard for acceptable levels of atrazine in drinking water is tight enough to protect human health. Yesterday’s Peoria Journal carried a story about a class action lawsuit filed in Illinois state court against Syngenta, …

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California’s Integrated Waste Management Board: Goodbye and Good Riddance

Shortly after taking office as California’s Governor, following a tumultuous recall election in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger famously promised to “blow up the boxes” of state government in favor of a more streamlined governance structure.  That commitment has since largely been sacrificed on the alter of ever-contentious California politics.  But this summer’s belated and painfully-negotiated California …

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Report from the Field: Thailand

I’m writing this post from Thailand, where I’ve been attending a conference of the Thai judiciary.  My presentation was on developments in U.S. climate law. It’s been a very interesting trip. Thailand faces some serious environmental issues, which you can’t help noticing just from breathing the air in Bangok.  The traffic jams, as seen on …

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I’ll gladly tell you Thursday if your beach is safe today…

Each year, NRDC publishes a report on the sometimes-foul state of our beachwater nationwide.  This year’s Testing the Waters analysis shows that people are still regularly swimming in water with unsafe levels of E Coli and other pathogens, and that thousands of people likely get ill every year from a day at the beach.  In the northeast …

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A Silver Lining to the Supreme Court Term for Environmentalists?

In assessing the environmental train wreck that was the just-concluded Supreme Court Term, the question arises: is there anything from that Term from which environmental interests can take comfort? The answer is at least a qualified “yes.” Somewhat lost in the attention focused on the justices’ five major environmental decisions–all of them clear defeats for …

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Cap and trade: it’s never worked, so let’s try it on a massive scale

Why exactly do people believe that cap-and-trade is going to be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Let’s face it: cap and trade is a nice idea that simply doesn’t work in practice. The one success story that proponents have held up was the successful effort to control acid rain. However, that program involved a …

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Setbacks for Coal

Two setbacks for coal this week:  First, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued an order that will result in further delay of the Longleaf coal-fired power plant proposed for Early County, Georgia.  Second, U.S. EPA notified the state of Kansas and Sunflower Electric Power Corp. that a new air quality permit will be required before …

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National Conversation Starts on Public Health and Chemical Exposure

The CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recently kicked off their National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposure with a day-long meeting on June 26, 2009 in Washington, DC.  The National Conversation is a stakeholder and public involvement initiative intended to develop an action agenda …

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