Regulation
Why the Right Has Run Out of Ideas
Most policy tools are no longer considered acceptable by many on the Right. If you have no tools to solve a problem, all you can do politically is to insist that the problem does not exist, is really a blessing in disguise, or will be automatically solved by the market and technological progress.
CONTINUE READINGSenator Santorum and the Environmental Chalice of Evil
Here is what Santorum said yesterday (from Politico): “You hear all the time, the left: ‘Oh, the conservatives are the anti-science party.’ No we’re not. We’re the truth party,” the former Pennsylvania senator said at a campaign event in Oklahoma City. “Because the left is always looking for a way to control you. They’re always …
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CONTINUE READINGIs Bureaucratic Leadership an Oxymoron?
History shows that that those much-maligned bureaucrats are sometimes the unsung heroes of policy improvement.
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s New Clean Car Rules: How Can They Succeed?
Yesterday, the California Air Resources Board significantly toughened the state’s regulations on carbon emissions from automobiles: The package of Air Resources Board regulations would require auto manufacturers to offer more zero- or very low-emission cars such as battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles in California starting with model year 2018. By 2025, …
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CONTINUE READINGPreserving U.S. Fisheries: A Bipartisan Pipe Dream?
President Obama’s call in his 2012 State of the Union address for a new spirit of bipartisanship brought to mind a recent Washington Post article on current federal efforts to preserve U.S. fisheries. In what qualifies as a rare “good news” story involving federal environmental policy, that article reports that the Obama Administration is poised to …
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CONTINUE READINGThe CEQA Streamlining “Slippery Slope” May Help Rail Transit
Whenever proposals come along to exempt or streamline environmental review for certain projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), CEQA defenders fear the slippery slope. Even if the target projects are environmentally benign, the concern is that once the CEQA armor has been pierced, special interests will be able to exploit the opening to …
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CONTINUE READINGObama Administration Proposes Merging NOAA’s Endangered Species Act Functions Into Department of the Interior
As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, President Obama has proposed a major government reorganization merging into a single, cabinet-level agency federal trade and commerce responsibilities currently dispersed among a number of different agencies and departments. These reforms, which would require the consent of Congress to implement, would increase government efficiency and reduced federal expenditures. …
CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Justices Are on USEPA’s Case
You can’t blame the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of late for feeling it’s under siege. All of the current Republican presidential candidates are regularly excoriating EPA on the campaign trail, and Congress has conducted oversight hearings and threatened all sorts of legislative action designed to clip EPA’s regulatory wings. Now the U.S. Supreme Court appears …
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CONTINUE READINGRick Santorum: The Second-Most Anti-Environmental Candidate
This is one of a series of posts describing presidential candidate’s views. I didn’t cover Santorum earlier because his poll numbers were so low, but that has obviously changed. Santorum’s website does not have a page dedicated to energy or environment but does make a number of pledges: Rick Santorum is committed to reviving our …
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CONTINUE READINGPreemption and Prescription Drugs
I’ve been reading a lengthy history of the FDA by Harvard political scientist Dan Carpenter. I’m planning to post later about some his observations regarding the political dynamics of drug regulation. But I was also struck by the implications of his description of drug regulation with regard to preemption of state torts claims. At first …
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