Public Lands

Wolf delisting rule challenged in federal court

Yesterday, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians filed a compliant in the federal district court of Montana challenging the wolf delisting rider. You can check out a press release from WildEarth Guardians here. My previous posts describe the wolf delisting rider and the past litigation on the wolf delisting. …

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Why have public lands?

I’ve been part of a very interesting discussion about why we have public lands over at PropertyProf Blog.  You can check it out here.

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The Mystery of Sierra Club v. Morton

  Sierra Club v. Morton is rightfully viewed as one of the most significant environmental decisions in Supreme Court history.  Although it hardly constituted a crimped or anti-environmental decision, it did go a long way to putting the brakes on environmental standing by ruling that the Sierra Club did not have the corporate standing to …

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What are the Top 10 Natural Resources Stories?

Lots of folks in legal academia are familiar with Foundation Press’ popular Law Stories series; around here on Legal Planet, we are particularly familiar with Environmental Law Stories (pictured right), edited by Richard Lazarus and Oliver Houck, to which Dan and Holly contributed a chapter. It’s a very useful book, and I’m a fan.  But …

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Why Economists Are Right and the Tea Party is Wrong About Government

The idea that the government should protect public goods and regulate externalities is just common sense.As I said earlier, economists tend to be fairly hard-nosed in applying these arguments, and they tend to favor cap-and-trade or pollution taxes more than conventional regulation. They also tend (in the view of some of us) to undervalue economic benefits and shortchange long-term human interests. But it would be hard to find a reputable economist, for example, who thinks we should do nothing about climate change, although there’s plenty of disagreement about how much we should do and how quickly.

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Wild horses in Ecology Law Currents

Ecology Law Currents, the online companion to Ecology Law Quarterly, has just published an article sharply criticizing the Bureau of Land Management’s implementation of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Here’s the editors’ synopsis: Currents has just published a touching and fascinating article on wild horse and burro removal from federal lands entitled “A …

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Forest Service releases proposed revised planning rule

On Monday, the Forest Service published its proposed new planning rule. The planning process for national forests has been in a kind of limbo since the end of the Clinton administration. The National Forest Management Act requires the preparation and periodic revision of land management plans for each national forest. The first planning rule was …

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And now for some good news

If you’re as depressed as I am by the current political climate and attempts on Capitol Hill to roll back everything from clean air protections to food safety, you might be feeling the need for some good news. Here’s at least a small antidote. The San Jose Mercury News reports that fish and birds are …

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Ninth Circuit affirms that ignorance is bliss

Lack of information is a continuing problem for environmental policy. In part, that’s unavoidable; we’ll never know enough about the world around us to be confident that we’re making the best choices. In part it is because potential regulatory targets control some needed information. And in significant part it’s because decisionmakers have a tendency to …

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The Incoming Congressional Freshmen

Politico has a nice posting about the incoming freshman GOP in the House and their views on environment and energy issues.  The bottom line: House Republican freshmen looking to make names for themselves on energy issues in the next Congress have some goals in common: Ramp up domestic energy production, roll back the Obama administration’s …

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