Trump Administration
Talking to Skeptics About Clean Energy
Some people will stop listening if you talk about climate change. But there are other arguments.
The dangers of climate change provide excellent reasons to support clean energy. But that argument can be futile — or worse, counterproductive — when listeners don’t take climate change seriously or reject the idea altogether. Fortunately, there are other arguments that may better appeal to them.
CONTINUE READINGImmigration Raids are an Attack on Climate
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
It’s hard to watch the Trump administration test drive authoritarianism in California. Since the inauguration, I’ve found solace in slowly rewatching The West Wing, a good bedtime story for anyone who feels nostalgia for partisan politics of yesteryear. Anyone else doing this? It’s uncanny how my rewatching has lined up with real world events. In …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Annihilation of Environmental Justice: A Timeline
Trump has spared no effort to ensure that the government ignores the needs of vulnerable communities.
Amid the daily onslaught of executive actions, the cumulative effect of these actions may escape notice. A case in point is environmental justice. It’s not just one or two dramatic actions: there has been a systematic war of elimination against protections for vulnerable communities. While initiated by Trump, the effort has included a ream of destructive follow-on actions. The best way to make the point is a chronological account.
CONTINUE READING(In?)sane With the Membrane
New developments in Deep Sea Desalination hold important promise for the freshwater crisis – and might require an amendment to Clarke’s Third Law.
The great speculative fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law reads: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This principle came to me the other day when considering this interesting Wall Street Journal piece on Deep Sea Desalination (which we can call DSD for short). Virtually alone among environmental law professors, I am a …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Most Important Law Most People Have Never Heard Of
Here’s how the APA bolsters the rule of law and protects the environment.
Even the title of the law — the Administrative Procedure Act or APA — is a guaranteed yawner. Yet this law is central to the rule of law and, among other things, to environmental protection. We are learning from the current Administration’s efforts to evade the APA just how important it is. The APA requires reasoned decisions by government. More fundamentally, the requirements of legal and procedural regularity prevent the arbitrary use of government power to reward friends and punish foes.
CONTINUE READINGWhy Do Heat Pumps Have a Bad Rap? Lies
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
I just listened to dozens of people tell me that heat pumps don’t work, may cause homelessness, and can bankrupt small businesses. This was shocking news to me, in no small part because I’m currently in the process of installing a heat pump in my condo. Obviously, I don’t want to waste money, sleep on …
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CONTINUE READINGCan Trump Save U.S. Coal? Not likely.
“Beautiful clean coal”, as Trump calls it, is inexorably declining.
The title of one of Trump’s executive orders is “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.” That order says, “it is the policy of the United States that coal is essential to our national and economic security.” But Trump’s efforts seem unlikely to make a dent in the long-term, global malaise of the coal industry, or its sharp decline in the U.S.
CONTINUE READINGReconciliation and public lands
Most changes would be to the leasing process for oil and gas development and reflect a partisan response to ping-pong governance
As the Senate takes up the House’s version of the reconciliation bill, I wanted to briefly summarize the main provisions that relate to public lands – in part so readers can be aware of the state of play as to what might (or might not) come to pass in the Senate. The bill as passed …
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CONTINUE READINGGiving Away the National Parks?
Another Trump Administration idea that probably requires Congressional action, and thus probably won’t happen
Another national park idea the Trump Administration had recently was to offload hundreds of national parks to states and local governments, in order to trim $900 million from the Park Service budget. The proposal is spare on details, only calling for the “transfer [of] certain properties to State-level management.” Secretary of the Interior Burgum stated …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Rock
Public lands law stands in the way of Trump’s proposal to reopen Alcatraz
About a month ago, President Trump floated the idea of reopening the federal prison at Alcatraz. The prison has been closed for decades, and it is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service, and a major tourist attraction. While a lot of the press coverage focused on …
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