Regulation
40 years hasn’t taught some agencies much
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. You would think that by now federal agencies would have the NEPA process pretty well down. After all, it’s been the law since 1970, requiring that every federal agency prepare an environmental impact statement before committing itself to environmentally harmful actions. And it’s not that hard to do. Agencies just have to …
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CONTINUE READINGNext American City
…might sound like a new reality show, but NAC is one of the best serious but non-academic urban policy and planning journals around. It has recently relaunched, replacing the print edition with what might be called Next American Journalism Model: they are supplementing the daily online content with one very in-depth feature per week, which you can buy …
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CONTINUE READINGThe NRC Ducks the Hard Questions
As Fukushima revealed, the Japanese nuclear industry had a very cozy relationship with regulators. That kind of coziness is not unheard of in the U.S. context, either. After the Three Mile Island accident, Congress divided the responsibilities of the Atomic Energy Commission, giving its mandate to promote nuclear power to DOE and its regulatory authority …
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CONTINUE READINGLos Angeles’ Expo Line: A Cautionary Tale For Building Rail
This weekend, the long awaited Expo Light Rail Line will finally open in Los Angeles, connecting the traffic-choked Westside with the rest of the city’s rail network, more than two decades after the region’s first modern rail line opened. The relatively short light rail line (8.6 miles, 12 stations) took an absurdly long amount of …
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CONTINUE READINGNew journal issue on using the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions
UCLA’s Journal of Environmental Law and Policy has just published its current issue, Volume 30, with all its content available free online in pdf format. This volume is a special symposium issue, featuring articles relating to the use of the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions. Several of the articles’ authors were speakers …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Summary Report on California’s Law to Streamline Environmental Review of Infill Projects
As this blog has chronicled, California has undertaken some ambitious efforts to streamline environmental review for certain infill projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). One of the most recent and potentially far-reaching attempts, SB 226 (Simitian, 2011), creates an in-depth administrative process to define the standards for what constitutes a “good” infill project. …
CONTINUE READINGA Side-by-Side Comparison of Romney and Obama on Energy and Environment
I’ve put together a table of language from the issues sections of the official campaign websites dealing with energy and environment. I decided to use the candidate’s own language to avoid interposing my own views on the issues. Please keep in mind that the table uses their language, not mine. Not surprisingly, the candidates frame …
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CONTINUE READINGHow California could surpass $1 billion in cap-and-trade auction revenue by 2013
Last week I did a series of posts examining the amount and potential price ranges for allowances in California’s upcoming cap-and-trade auctions for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Knowing the estimated auction clearing price plus the estimated number of allowances to be sold at auction tells us the estimated revenue from that auction. Several estimates of …
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CONTINUE READINGCould Self-Driving Cars Help The Environment?
As companies like Google pioneer technologies to allow cars to drive themselves, futurists have been imagining a world where autonomous vehicles rule the roadway. Using computer programs, map data, complex sensors, and soon the ability to “see” all vehicles within miles, these cars hold the promise of averting the vast majority of car accidents caused …
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CONTINUE READINGCould standing save CEQA?
One of the recent complaints about CEQA has been that the statute has been abused by various parties who have no interest in protecting the environment, but instead are simply interested in either (a) raising costs for competitors or (b) using the threat of CEQA litigation to extract payments from project proponents. Various horror stories …
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