Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Yes, there is a Freedom of Information Act blog called, appropriately enough, The FOIA Blog. (Hat tip: Legal History Blog via Law Blog Central.)

There is increasing interest in a potential offshore wind farm in Lake Erie. While there are sea-based wind turbines in Europe, proposals for such projects of the U.S. coast have been blocked, often by the same folks who call for greater investments in alternative energy sources (see, e.g., the ill-fated Cape Wind project off of […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed down six published opinions today, several of which seem notable (though I have not had the chance to read them all yet). Among today’s opinions are: – Doe v. ExxonMobil Corp., a divided opinion on the justiciability of claims brought under the Alien Tort Statute […]

As reported in this Washington Post editorial (LvHB), a high-ranking administration official recently suggested that major law firms may have to choose between allowing their attorneys to do pro bono work for Guantanamo detainees and retaining high-profile corporate clients. No joke. In a radio interview, deputy assistant secretary of defense of detainee affairs Cully Stimson […]

In an effort to encourage greater risk prioritization and regulatory cost-effectiveness, the Office of Management and Budget developed new guidelines for risk assessments conducted by government agencies. The aim was to create a set of guidelines to ensure agency risk estimates used to develop regulations would be reliable and consistent. Various activist groups criticized the […]

All three parts of Jim Newton’s series on Justice William Brennan’s memos are now available on Slate: Part One: Brennan on Burger (and the death penalty); Part Two: Brennan on Abortion (and U.S. v. Nixon); Part Three: Brennan Dishes on His Colleagues (and on Warren’s legacy). Rick Hasen has some comments on part three, and […]

Since several students and professors at the University of Minnesota expressed opposition to the appointment of Professor Robert Delahunty to teach constitutional law, others have expressed substantial support for the decision (or, at least, opposition to the opposition). In particular, I learned that a prominent group of Delahunty’s former supervisors from the Justice Department’s Office […]

I retook the Political Compass questionnaire tonight, and scored fairly libertarian: 7.38 on the economic left/right axis, and -2.92 on the social libertarian/authoritarian axis. Like others, I have problems with the test. Among other things, some of the questions seem to presume that if one holds that a given practice or activity is immoral or […]

At The Knowledge Problem, economist Lynne Kiesling discusses the NYT article on variable-rate electricity pricing I highlighted Monday. As she sees it, there is a problem of asymmetric information. In the case of electricity, retail customers do not see price changes until after those changes have taken effect, because under existing regulation they pay averaged […]

I did not attend the AALS conference this year, but from these accounts (Inside Higher Ed and Dorf on Law), it sounds like there was an interesting panel on academic freedom. Among other things, the panel addressed the controversy at the University of Minnesota over the decision to have University of St. Thomas law professor […]

Where did Jim Newton’s Slate article go? Rick Hasen wonders here. UPDATE: Mystery solved (check the updates).

One of new Ohio Governor Ted Strickland’s very first official acts was vetoing a bill that outgoing Governor Bob Taft had intended to let become a law. The legislation, Senate Bill 117, would have amended the state’s consumer protection laws to cap noneconomic damages in predatory lending suits and limit the ability of Ohio municipalities […]

Slate‘s William Saletan defends cloned food. It’s a good article, that briefly summarizes and refutes the conventional arguments against meat and milk products from cloned animals. Messing with nature at this level is never simple. It requires ongoing debate, monitoring, and regulation. But we’re not even getting that debate. Instead, opponents are relying, as they […]

A pilot program in Chicago could help make variable rate pricing for electricity a reality for consumers. The idea is straightforward: Because the demand for electricity varies from day-to-day, as well as by time of day, electricity prices should reflect this fact. This would encourage consumers to shift some electricity use, such as running the […]

Math: A; English: B; History: A; Spanish: B; Body Mass Index: F It seems that some schools are joining the obesity police. The NYT reports that some school districts send home report cards on how children fare on the “Body Mass Index,” a crude measure of obesity. Children that are above the 85th percentile on […]