Trump Administration
How Harmful Was Trump’s COVID Response?
We know it was bad, but how much of the U.S. death rate can be attributed to him rather than circumstances?
The U.S. COVID response went badly in 2020. How much was because Trump was Trump? That is, if Trump had been a moderately competent but imperfect leader, facing a diverse population with a significant resistance to public health measures, how many lives would have been saved? That’s not a question that anyone can answer with …
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CONTINUE READINGGetting the Lead Out
The Ninth Circuit tells EPA to determine safe levels for lead based solely on science.
Lead can cause neurological damage to young children and developing fetuses. The only really safe level is zero. Because poor children are the most likely to be exposed to this hazard, this is also a major environmental justice issue. The Trump EPA took the position that it could set a hazard level higher than zero …
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CONTINUE READINGCost-Benefit Analysis and the Biden EPA
The recent rescission of a Trump rule hints at how the Biden Administration views the role of cost-benefit analysis.
In its closing days, the Trump Administration issued a rule designed to tilt EPA’s cost-benefit analysis of air pollution regulations in favor of industry. Last week, EPA rescinded the rule. The rescission was no surprise, given that the criticisms of the Trump rule by economists as well as environmentalists. EPA’s explanation for the rescission was …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributor Jetta Cook: Greater Than the Sum: Sub-national Renewable Energy Policy during the Trump Administration
Even Red-States Supported and Increased Renewable Energy during the Trump Administration
Below the federal level, it’s difficult to discern the impact that the Trump Administration had on energy policy. To take a closer look, I conducted a fifty-state survey to discern how state, local, and public utility actions affecting energy policy came together as a whole over the past four years. Across the nation, I found, …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributors Clara Barnosky, Jane Sadler, Richard Yates, and Zachary Zimmerman: The Biden Administration’s First 100 Days of Reversing Environmental Rollbacks
An Early Analysis of Progress and Priorities in the Executive Branch
In the final months of the Trump presidency, we (a team of students working with U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE)) compiled a database of over 200 environmental rollbacks enacted during the Trump administration. These rollbacks characterized the administration’s aggressive focus on deregulation of industry and disregard of protections for the …
CONTINUE READINGThe Green MAGA-Deal Goes Public!
It’s something no one expected, and for good reason.
There were gasps of astonishment when Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Bernie Sanders took the stage together. The gasps turned into stunned silence as Trump began to speak. The trio were there, Trump said, to announce something HUGE, something no one ever expected: the world’s biggest plan for climate action. Trump began by denouncing the …
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CONTINUE READINGBiden’s Dilemma: Limiting Carbon from Existing Power Plants
It’s not that the policy choices are that hard. It’s the 6-3 Supreme Court.
Coal- and gas-fired power plants are a major source of U.S. carbon emissions. The Obama Administration devised a perfectly sensible, moderate policy to cut those emissions. The Trump Administration replaced it with a ridiculous token policy. The D.C. Circuit appeals court tossed that out. Now what? It wouldn’t be hard to redo the Obama policy …
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CONTINUE READINGA Preview: Major Property Rights Case Currently Before U.S. Supreme Court
Decision in Cedar Point Nursery Could Imperil Key Health, Safety & Environmental Programs
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a major property rights case from California: Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid. That litigation arises in a labor law context. But, depending on how the Court rules, the case could have major, deleterious impacts on a wide array of health, safety and environmental programs. …
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CONTINUE READINGImplementing the “Biden Environmental Litigation Bounce-Back”
Encouraging Signals As To How Biden’s USDOJ Will Resolve Environmental Lawsuits Originally Brought Against the Trump Administration
The transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration makes for fascinating spectator sport. President Biden’s first month in office reveals that he and his Administration are committed to undoing the widespread damage former President Trump and his minions engineered across so many policy and legal areas. The environment is a particularly prominent example. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe End of the Juliana Litigation–Or Is It?
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Denies Rehearing, But Landmark Climate Change Litigation’s Impact Will Endure
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc in one of the nation’s most closely-watched climate change lawsuits: Juliana v. United States. But the legal and policy impact of this landmark litigation will endure. And the case itself may not be concluded. Juliana involves a novel legal argument: that …
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