Regulatory Policy
Mitigating the Climate Impacts of Aliso Canyon
Staff from California Air Resources Board released the Draft Aliso Canyon Methane Leak Climate Impacts Mitigation Program last week. While the program has yet to gain approval by the Board, the final version will probably not change much. Overall, the Draft Program signals ARB’s desire to take full advantage of the political will and financial …
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CONTINUE READINGLabor Mobility and Environmental Regulation
Net job loss is small, but the effects of regulation might leave some workers stranded.
Regulators should give some thought to issues of labor mobility, which may be smaller than economists have assumed. Recent studies show that people who lost manufacturing jobs due to competition from China often failed to get new jobs in other places or sectors of the economy. Regulation can also cause some individual to lose their …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger David Spence: Why Some Electricity Markets Will Struggle With Decarbonization
David Spence is Professor of Law, Politics & Regulation at the University of Texas at Austin
Recently the New York Times published an article chronicling the financial problems experienced by one of the world’s premier developers of concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities. The financial headwinds facing CSP are a sign of a more fundamental problem electricity markets face: namely, capturing all of the important values we attach to electricity production. Most …
CONTINUE READINGCreating An Exit Strategy for Our Use of Natural Gas
To meet long-term greenhouse gas reduction goals, all fossil fuels have to go, even natural gas.
Coal is the climate’s Public Enemy #1. The use of natural gas has helped to ensure that the coal problem has not become even worse. Without natural gas, we would use more coal for space heating and for many more industrial processes than is currently the practice. Without natural gas, our reliance on coal for …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Supreme Court Vacancy and EPA’s Mercury Rule
The rule limiting toxic pollution from coal plants now has a rosier future.
Among the many ramifications of the current vacancy on the bench, its effect on the EPA’s mercury rule seems to have escaped much attention. It may already have helped EPA defeat an effort by states to get a stay from Chief Justice Roberts. But it has much broader significance. Some background: The Supreme Court, in a …
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CONTINUE READINGSan Jose’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Dodges Supreme Court Bullet
Justices Deny Review of California Supreme Court Decision Upholding San Jose Measure
Advocates of the City of San Jose’s controversial inclusionary housing ordinance, which was upheld in a 2015 California Supreme Court decision, are breathing a sigh of relief this week. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court has denied the California Building Industry Association’s petition for certiorari in the case. But the available evidence suggests that the High Court …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Enforcement in the Age of Trump
Is it time for a retributive turn in environmental law?
Many thought that the BP Oil Spill would lead to new environmental legislation, as happened after past environmental disasters. That didn’t happen. But something else did happen: BP paid $24 billion in civil and criminal penalties. In an era where any effort at government regulation is immediately denounced as a dire threat to liberty, …
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CONTINUE READINGRisk Subsidies and the Future of Nuclear Power in the U.S.
Should We Take Into Account Government Subsidies that Reduce the Risks Borne by the Nuclear Industry as We Consider Our Energy Future?
As I’ve written about before, U.S. law massively subsidizes the nuclear power industry. In particular, a law called the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act dramatically skews the incentives to develop nuclear plants, and to site them in places where there is a lot of risk, because it requires the public to bear much of the …
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CONTINUE READINGLessons from Aliso Canyon, Part II
Leaks in Regulation
Today, Southern California Gas announced it has successfully and permanently stopped the methane leak at its Aliso Canyon storage site. This marks the (fingers-crossed) end of a multi-month environmental crisis in northwest Los Angeles, causing residents to move and schools to close. Earlier this month, I blogged about the possible lessons we could learn …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Tricky Problem of Cumulative Exposures
A new UCLA report finds reason to be concerned about cumulative risk, and notes that under CA law regulators are required to act
We are all exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals through consumer products, air pollution, drinking water, and occupational exposures, just to name a few. Yet chemicals and pollutants are largely assessed and regulated individually. Increasingly, environmental health professionals have been attempting to grapple with assessing the risk of exposure to multiple chemicals. New …
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