Politico is reporting on Majority Leader Harry Reid’s efforts to corral enough votes for a Senate climate bill. Reid says that “cap-and-trade” is not in his vocabulary, but the whole plan is to enact something that can be conferenced with the House bill (“Waxman-Markey”) and enacted in a post-election lame duck session. The problem is […]
Archive | Climate Change
ClimateGate Revisited
Last week, the UK Independent Climate Change Email Review (aka the Muir Russell Review) released its report on the alleged scientific misconduct of climate researchers revealed by the disclosure of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University. As the NYT reports, the review rejects the claims that the ClimateGate e-mails disclosed scientific […]
Property Rights & Climate Change at AALS
By Jonathan H. Adler on June 20, 2010 11:29 pm in Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Property Rights
I presented on a plenary panel discussing the implications of global warming for property law at the AALS Mid-Year meeting earlier this month. My thesis, in short, was that concerns about global climate change do not justify abandoning or reconceiving traditional property norms. To the contrary, I suggested, environmental problems generally – and the threat […]
Climate Policy Panel at ACS
By Jonathan H. Adler on June 20, 2010 11:02 pm in American Constitution Society, Climate Change, Energy, Environment
On Saturday I participated in a panel on climate change policy, “Environmental Protection in a Climate of Change,” at the American Constitution Society’s National Convention in Washington, D.C. In addition to yours truly the panel featured Vicki Arroyo of the Georgetown Climate Center, Interior Department Deputy Solicitor Rachel Jacobson, and Andrew Light of the Center […]
Is Carbon Capture a Pipe Dream?
The stimulus bill included over $2 billion for the development of carbon capture technologies. The just-introduced Kerry-Lieberman climate bill would authorize $2 billion more. Will anything result from these investments? I would hope so, but Robert Bryce argues carbon capture has substantial — perhaps insuperable — economic obstacles to overcome. He writes: That’s a lot […]
Comment on Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill
I am a sometime-contributor to the National Journal‘s Energy & Environment Expert Blog. This week the focus is the Kerry-Lieberman climate change bill, the “American Power Act,” and the EPA’s decision to raise the threshold for stationary sources regulated under the Clean Air Act from emissions to 75,000 tons per year for carbon dioxide, even […]
Would the Public Support “Cap and Refund”?
I’ve never been convinced that “cap and trade” is more politically viable than a rebated carbon tax. I believe a relatively simple, transparent policy of taxing carbon but rebating the revenues to consumers is more appealing than an overly complex regulatory scheme that is difficult to understand, particularly if the latter approach will also increase […]
OMB Has Its Eyes on Prizes
Earlier this month, with little fanfare, the Obama Administration took a small but significant step toward encouraging greater technological innovation. On March 8, the Office of Management and Budget issued a guidance to federal agencies on the use of challenges and prizes to spur technological innovation. This memorandum seeks to “strongly encourage” federal agencies to […]
Restoring Faith in Climate Science
The NYT reports on various efforts to restore the credibility of climate science and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the wake of “ClimateGate” and the discovery of a handful false claims and misrepresentation of scientific research in portions of the IPCC reports. The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from […]
“Cap-and-Trade Is Dead” — Long Live Cap-and-Trade?
Last week, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared “Cap-and-trade is dead.” There is no way the Senate will pass the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that passed the House. But Sen. Graham is working with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on an alternative proposal to control greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development […]
“The EPA’s Carbon Footprint”
My article from the March 2010 Reason on the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” that triggers the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is now available online. It begins: On December 7, as delegates from around the world gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate conference, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa […]
Weather Is Not Climate
What does the “snowpocalypse” tell us about the likelihood of climate change? Nothing. As Roger Pielke Jr. explains: What happens in the weather this week or next tells us absolutely nothing about the role of humans in influencing the climate system. It is unjustifiable to claim that a cold snap or heavy snow disproves or […]
Still More IPCC Errors
British news organizations are now combing through the IPCC reports, finding more errors and material sourced to non-peer-reviewed material, including student papers and reports by advocacy organizations. Most of these errors continue to relate to the more policy-oriented aspects of the IPCC reports — practical consequences of climate change and potential policy responses. This is […]
Tribe: Climate Cases Are Political Questions
The Washington Legal Foundation has just released an interesting paper by Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, co-authored with HLS student Joshua D. Branson and Shook, Hardy & Bacon attorney Tristan L. Duncan, arguing that public nuisance lawsuits against utilities for their alleged contributions to climate change should be considered non-justiciable political questions. They write: global […]
Monbiot: Heads Must Roll at CRU
The Guardian‘s George Monbiot is again calling for resignations at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. This is a tough time for climate science. The Guardian’s new revelations about the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia might help to explain the university’s utter failure to […]