Regulation
A prospective time-out on Arctic fisheries
Just as it did with krill in the Pacific, NMFS has gotten ahead of the curve in regulating potential new commercial fisheries in the U.S. arctic. Global warming, by reducing the extent of sea ice, promises to open new areas to fishing vessels. At the same time, changing ocean temperatures and currents are expected to …
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CONTINUE READINGNanoparticles Potentially Linked to Factory Worker Deaths in China
This week Reuters reported what are billed as the first documented clinical cases of human health effects from exposure to nanoparticles. Seven young women, two of whom died, suffered severe permanent lung damage following months of largely unprotected exposure to fumes and smoke containing nanoparticles in spray painting operation in China. The women all worked …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Religion and Environmentalism Can Mix Productively
A few weeks ago, I posted on religion on the environment, expressing some skepticism that religion could be useful in environmental policy debates. After thinking about it a bit, I’ve revised that view somewhat, for a reason that can actually be encapsulated pretty succinctly: Religion is not economics. That’s pretty obvious, of course, but it …
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CONTINUE READINGCourt to Interior: Not so fast on rule change
In April, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asked a federal court to vacate a last-minute Bush administration rule relaxing stream buffer zone requirements for dumping waste from mountaintop removal mining. Salazar said that the rule didn’t pass the smell test, and that it had been improperly issued without ESA consultation. Environmental groups which had challenged the …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’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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CONTINUE READINGNudging Smart Growth
There are lots of problems with Sunstein and Thaler’s book Nudge, but its central premise has potentially powerful applications to a host of problems. Sunstein and Thaler posit that in many policy areas, “choice architects” can help people make better choices without impairing their actual ability to make that choice — a philosophy that they call …
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CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit reinstates Clinton roadless rule
Since the end of the Clinton era, there has been much confusion over the status of roadless areas in the national forests. Yesterday the Ninth Circuit weighed in, ruling in California v. USDA that the Bush administration had unlawfully revised the Clinton administration’s Roadless Rule, and reinstating that rule. The decision, which has been welcomed …
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CONTINUE READINGI’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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CONTINUE READINGProposed Order on Floodplain Development
The White House is considering a new executive order to limit floodplain development. The proposal covers roughly the same federal licensing, project, and funding decisions as NEPA. The heart of the proposal is section 4, which unlike NEPA imposes a substantive requirement (preventing or mitigating floodplain development.) The proposed language is after the jump. This …
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