Yesterday the Department of Interior finalized a rule that allows wind farms to get 30-year permits allowing them to kill federally-protected eagles. Eagles are frequent accidental victims of power plants and wind turbines, and the government has long taken the position that it is a federal crime to kill an eagle even unintentionally. To get […]
Archive | Environment
Climate Change Goes Back to Court
This morning, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. This is quite significant. Although the grant is limited, it focuses on one of the most important legal questions raised by this litigation, and puts some of […]
Conservatives and Environmental Regulation
There is fairly broad opposition to centralized environmental regulation within the Republican Party today. Conservative activists in particular focus their ire on the Environmental Protection Agency and federal efforts to maintain or enhance environmental quality. It was not always so. The American conservation movement has roots on the right side of the political spectrum and […]
What Russia’s Piracy Charges Against Greenpeace Mean for International Law
Amazingly, Russia has brought criminal piracy charges against the crew of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, which it had arrested on the high seas. The piracy charges make a mockery of international law, for reasons I’ve discussed. Moreover, such clearly abusive and politicized piracy charges are quite unprecedented in modern history, as far as I […]
The Impact of Automation on Environmental Impact Statements
By Bryant Walker Smith, guest-blogging on October 1, 2013 6:06 pm in Automation, Energy, Environment, Regulation, Robotics, Self-Driving Cars
Since the 1950s, the Long Beach Freeway has linked the massive Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to, roughly, the rest of the continental United States. Because much has changed in trade and traffic since then, California’s relevant transportation authorities have decided that perhaps this freeway should change as well. The resulting Draft Environmental […]
Greenpeace & Russia – an International Pussy Riot
I blogged earlier about Russia’s illegal seizure of a Greenpeace vessel in international waters, and its laughable characterization of their acts as maritime piracy. The ship Arctic Sunrise had been boarded after an attempt to board or come alongside a Russian oil rig for some kind of non-violent protest. Subsequently, Vladimir Putin apparently poured cold […]
EPA Proposes New Carbon Standards for Power Plants
Today the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing carbon dioxide emission standards for new power plants that will, in effect, bar the construction of new coal-fired power plants without costly carbon capture technology. The proposed standards would require both natural gas and coal-fired power plants to meet stringent new limits — limits that most new natural […]
Coase on Externalities
The existence of “externalities” — effects (costs or benefits) of market transactions that are not experienced by those involved in the transaction, but are instead experienced by others, those “external” to the transaction — is routinely proffered as a justification for governmental regulation of private economic activity. Ronald Coase had a different view, however. In […]
EPA Fares Well in D.C. Circuit
By Jonathan H. Adler on August 28, 2013 8:16 pm in Administrative Law, Environment, Judicial Nominations
As I noted here, some progressives argue that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is engaged in a “judicial jihad against the regulatory state,” environmental regulations in particular. It seems someone forgot to tell the judges on the D.C. Circuit, for as Greenwire reports, the Environmental Protection Agency fares rather well in a […]
Learning How to Fish
Speaking of fish, the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy has just released my most recent paper, “Learning How to Fish: Catch Shares and the Future of Fishery Conservation,” co-authored with my former student Nathaniel Stewart. Here’s the abstract from SSRN: Fisheries the world over are poorly managed and under stress. Yet, proper fishery […]
Teaching Carnivorous Fish to Be Vegetarians
the Washington Post reports on a successful effort to convert captive cobia to a vegetarian diet. The conversion of these carnivorous fish to a completely vegetarian diet is a first, according to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and a key to breaking a cycle in which the ocean’s stocks of small fish […]
How Not to Convince Republicans to Address Climate Change
It’s fair to say that only one political party today considers climate change to be a problem worth addressing. As readers know, I wish it were otherwise and believe there is a conservative case for addressing climate change. I welcome others to this cause. This NYT op-ed, “A Republican Case for Climate Action,” is not the sort […]
America’s Water and Wastewater Crisis
I have a review of America’s Water and Wastewater Crisis: The Role of Private Enterprise by Lewis Solomon now up on the Liberty Law Blog. Here’s how my review begins: Many environmental problems are exaggerated. Water scarcity is not. If anything, water supply problems are ignored. Inefficient water allocations and deteriorating urban infrastructure cannot compete […]
DELPF’s “Conservative Visions of Our Environmental Future” Symposium
The Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum has published the papers from the Fall conference on “Conservative Visions of Our Environmental Future” about which I blogged here. Other contributors include former Rep. Bob Inglis, Shi-Ling Hsu (Florida State), Reed Watson (PERC), Nicholas Loris (Heritage Foundation), Eli Lehrer (R Street Institute), and James Salzman (Duke). PDFs […]
Case Western Reserve Law Review Symposium on Hydraulic Fracturing
The Case Western Reserve Law Review has published its fall symposium on “The Law and Policy of Hydraulic Fracturing: Addressing the Issues of the Natural Gas Boom.” I blogged about the symposium here. The full issue is available onilne in PDF, and I’ve posted links to the articles below. Introduction by Jonathan L. Entin Four Questions […]