October 25, 2019
In September, the war against stronger vehicle emission standards got real. We went from two and a half years of escalating rhetoric between the Trump administration and California to dramatic federal action with potentially profound consequences. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) jointly issued new rules to…
April 1, 2019
Voters in Toledo, Ohio, passed this February a citizen-based initiative that amends the city charter to add a new section entitled “Lake Erie Bill of Rights,” which allows citizens to sue on behalf of the Lake if the Lake faces environmental harm. The vote wasn’t even close. More than sixty percent of the voters favored…
November 8, 2018
In early October, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming new report on the impact climate change will have on the planet by 2040. These new findings, reviewed by ninety-one international scientists, are worrisome because it now seems that disaster is possible with an even smaller increase in global temperatures than previously…
April 11, 2018
On a sunny Tuesday in February, SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire Elon Musk, launched a 23-story tall rocket, known as the Falcon Heavy, into space. Bolted into the second stage of the rocket was a luxurious, cherry red Tesla roadster. If you somehow missed this news, it’s actually worth going back and…
January 26, 2018
Generating electricity from coal is a dirty business. Coal mining and power production release toxic heavy metals like mercury, respiratory irritants like sulfur dioxide and particulates, and large volumes of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Nevertheless, the current administration has made no secret of its desire to “save” coal. Its latest effort involved…
January 6, 2018
On December 4, 2017, President Trump announced his long-anticipated decisions to shrink two major national monuments in southern Utah. Trump shrunk the Bears Ears National Monument designated by President Obama at the end of 2016 from 1.35 million acres to 201,786 acres, a reduction of about 85%. The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was reduced…
January 4, 2018
Don’t the high seas seem less remote than they used to? Many of us have gazed out an airplane window on an intercontinental flight and seen the featureless ocean below (and wondered if there is really a life vest strapped under our seat). That contemplative moment might have led us to worry whether our soda…
December 7, 2017
The environmental community has been waiting for a shoe to drop ever since April 26th, when President Trump issued Executive Order 13792. The Order directed the Secretary of the Interior to recommend the reduction or abolition of national monuments that had been established or extended since the end of President Clinton’s first term. This past…
December 6, 2017
The modern administrative state was built on the promise of expertise. As James Landis argued in his New Deal-era defense of the bureaucracy, expert agencies are needed to effectively oversee the behavior of sophisticated industry actors. Consistent with Landis’s vision, government agencies today are populated by subject matter experts. Thus, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)…
December 4, 2017
Overview Chevron — the stalwart doctrine of administrative deference — is under political, judicial, and academic attack. Our newest Justice, Neil Gorsuch, has denounced Chevron as “a judge-made doctrine for the abdication of the judicial duty.” Chief among his complaints is that Chevron deference enables an agency to “reverse its current view 180 degrees anytime…
November 30, 2017
We are currently in the midst of the most important deregulatory moment in the United States since the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1981 — perhaps since the dawn of the administrative state. President Donald Trump has issued a series of Executive Orders directing agencies to explore opportunities to reduce regulatory burdens, including Executive…
