Regulation
Trump’s Executive Order: Bad Policy and More Uncertainty
President Trump’s Executive Order on climate policy is an invitation to bad policymaking and legal uncertainty. The big-ticket item targeted by the Order, of course, is the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan and related rules on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The EO has limited immediate legal impact: none of the major rules can …
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CONTINUE READINGSome Resources for Non-Experts (and for Experts Too!) on the Executive Order Rolling Back Federal Climate Change Regulations
Cutting Through the Information Overload
The President’s Executive Order rolling back climate change-related initiatives, “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth,” just came out today, and there’s already plenty of analysis to help people to understand its likely impact. While the short answer is that it is terrible for our country, the long answers tend to make people’s eyes glaze over if …
CONTINUE READINGScott Gottlieb and the FDA
The FDA nominee compares favorably with some of Trump’s choices. But there are still problems.
There was a time when it might not have seemed particularly noteworthy that a presidential nominee was competent and sane. But we do not live in those times. So it is actually worth taking notice of the fact that Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s nominee to head FDA, is competent and sane. And unlike some other Trump …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Environmental Budget
The proposal to Congress was released today. It’s very bad news.
I’ve been posting budget news as it has come out. Now that we have Trump’s proposal, I’ve replaced all the earlier information with the official numbers in this version. The bottom line: the budget would be a disaster for the environment, for science, and for the country. The general philosophy behind the budget was …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Trump Administration’s False Stories About the Environmental Protection Agency Are Meant to Take the Agency Down
Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt Distort the Facts About EPA’s Mission, History, and Success
The Trump Administration has made clear its plans to systematically dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Destroying the EPA will be a key element of the administration’s fight, in the words of White House policy advisor Steve Bannon, to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” [Update 8/22/17: Bannon is out, but that doesn’t change the Administration’s …
CONTINUE READING“States’ Rights” and Environmental Law: California on the Front Lines
EPA’s Assault on Air Quality Protection Will Aim at California’s Standards, While Other States Have Given Up Their Authority to Protect Public Health and the Environment More Strictly
This article just published in the Atlantic explains well one of the many ways that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may attempt to deeply harm our environment for decades to come: through declining to grant, or revoking, the waivers that allow California to regulate air pollution from new motor vehicle engines more strictly than the federal government does. …
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CONTINUE READINGWill There Be Guerrilla War at EPA?
Scott Pruitt’s invasion of EPA probably won’t be met with flowers.
Scott Pruitt has spent his career at war with EPA, and he has now invaded the homeland. What he encounters may look more like a guerrilla war than a bureaucratic surrender. To be blunt, it’s generally a mistake to expect an invading force to be greeted with flowers and hugs from the grateful inhabitants. Agencies like …
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CONTINUE READINGAbout that carbon tax idea….
Eric Biber posted last week about the proposal from several heavyweight Republicans for a carbon tax, outlined in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Much has been said about the merits and problems of a carbon tax, including on this blog, so I will try not to repeat those points here. However, I wanted to expand …
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CONTINUE READINGA Yawning Credibility Gap
Courts are supposed to defer to agencies. But that happens less often when an agency lacks credibility.
Two themes in the Trump Administration are distrust of experts and a willingness to overrule them on ideological grounds. But undermining the government’s claims to expertise may come back to haunt the Administration. Because Trump is marginalizing government scientific and economic expertise, his regulatory initiatives may get less deference from the courts. There is already a great deal of concern …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Environmental Assault Begins
Clean Power Plan, Waters of the U.S. Rules First on the Chopping Block But What Remains in Place Varies Dramatically
The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump Administration will very shortly roll out two executive orders to curtail environmental protection. These rollbacks follow on the heels of the Senate’s confirmation of Scott Pruitt, who has made no secret of his antipathy for federal environmental regulations. The first executive order, as widely expected, will tell the …
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