- Falling tree limb injures woman, jury orders city of Savannah to pay $12 million [Insurance Journal]
- Dept. of Interior mulls lowering threshold for federal recognition of Indian tribes [AP]
- Section 230: “The Law that Gave Us the Modern Internet, and the Campaign to Kill It” [Derek Khanna, The Atlantic]
- Interview with false-memory expert Elizabeth Loftus [Slate]
- “No meaningful costs or downsides” to the Microsoft antitrust case? Really? [Tom Bowden]
- NSA covertly intervened in standards making process to weaken encryption standards [Mike Masnick, TechDirt] After being rebuffed by public opinion in quest for dragnet surveillance programs, NSA quietly put programs in place through other channels [Jack Shafer; related, Ken at Popehat]
- Given the limitations of litigation, better not to lament the shortcomings of the NFL concussion settlement [Howard Wasserman]
Posts Tagged ‘trees’
“S.F. homeowners pine for sane tree policy”
First the city of San Francisco decided that homeowners were responsible for pruning and otherwise maintaining the municipally planted trees on the sidewalks in from of their homes. Now it’s hitting them with big fines for doing it improperly. [San Francisco Chronicle via Amy Alkon]
Environment roundup
- Better hope a Portland municipal arborist never takes an interest in you [Tod Kelly, League of Ordinary Gentlemen]
- California’s Prop 65 and Gresham’s Law of Warnings (bad warnings drive out good) [David Henderson]
- Bombshells just keep on coming in the Ecuador Lago Agrio story: “Litigation finance firm in Chevron case says it was duped by Patton Boggs” [Roger Parloff, Fortune; last Saturday’s bombshell] Grounds for embarrassment at CBS “60 Minutes” [CJR]
- Brad Plumer interview with Jonathan Adler, “What conservative environmentalism might look like” [WaPo]
- “The light-bulb law was a matter of public policy profiteering” [Tim Carney via @amyalkon] To get ahead in D.C., a well-known conservative group adopts some concrete priorities [same]
- “No one’s tried that. It’s not worth taking the risk.” Social-conservative, environmentalist themes have much in common [A. Barton Hinkle]
- “BP Loses Bid to Block ‘Fictitious’ Oil Spill Claims” [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ; more]
Drunk driver leads cops on high-speed chase; 21 local residents sued
Great moments in blame-shifting: In Dade City, Fla., an ex-con with cocaine and other drugs in his system tried to outrun the cops in a high speed chase, then veered into a farm neighborhood where he smashed his car into two trees on a one-lane dead-end private road, instantly killing himself and a passenger. Now the estate of his passenger (who was also on drugs) is suing 21 local residents who jointly maintain the private road, saying they should have kept it clear of trees and did not provide adequate signage. “There were no apparent visual roadway obstructions or environmental factors that would have contributed to this crash,” a report from the Florida Highway Patrol stated at the time. [Tampa Bay Times](& Alkon)
Neighbors’ trees block his view
In Clyde Hill, Wash., a retired Seattle Mariners baseball player has won a ruling from the town that his neighbors must remove two trees that block what would otherwise be an “amazing view of Seattle’s skyline” from his property. “An appraiser hired by John and Kelly Olerud said their $4 million home would be worth $255,000 more if the rare Chinese pine and the Colorado spruce across the street were cut down and replaced with smaller plants. The Chinese pine’s value is estimated at more than $18,000.” [Seattle Times, Ilya Somin] In other tree removal news, an Ontario mother “is fighting to have oak trees removed near her child’s school, fearing that acorns could pose a deadly threat to students with severe allergies.” Local officials say it is unlikely the acorns would prove allergenic to a child unless eaten, which rarely happens given their extreme bitterness. The mother also says acorns “can also be used to bully and torment children.” [Toronto Star via Lenore Skenazy]
Hurricane Sandy recovery and occupational licensing
To get your power turned back on in the Rockaways, according to a spokesman for the Long Island Power Authority, you’re going to need a pre-inspection for your house not just from a licensed electrician, but from one licensed in NYC — nearby Nassau County, or upstate, won’t do. If occupational licensure makes any sense at all — and Milton Friedman had a thing or two to say about that — it certainly needs to be reconsidered under conditions of public emergency and disaster recovery, or so I argue in my new post at Cato at Liberty.
For more background on the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) as a political football, by the way, check out Nicole Gelinas in the New York Post. Also on disaster recovery, why this might be a good time to rethink municipal ordinances barring property owners from removing old trees [Chris Fountain]. And: “Can customers sue power companies for outages? Yes, but it’s hard to win” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
N.J.: town “official bemoans $12K in paperwork to remove tree from creek”
New Jersey: “The state Department of Environmental Protection requires permits and engineering work totaling $12,000 before the township can pull a tree out of a creek near Pittstown, Committeeman Scott Bauman told the Township Committee on Feb. 9.” The tree fell on private property and is causing a drainage problem by obstructing the creek. [Hunterdon County Democrat]
Environmental law roundup
- Peter Schweizer: “To RFK, Jr: I’m No Sock Puppet, But You Sir Are a Bootlegger” [Huffington Post; some background on America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®]
- Will legal campaign succeed in shutting down natural gas fracking? [WLF, David Oliver, CL&P, Abby Wisse Schachter/NYP]
- Nice work if you can get it: key figure in dubious Chevron-Ecuador expert report slated for National Academy of Sciences reappointment [WizBang, earlier]
- EPA’s move-cement-production-to-China plan runs into uncooperative judge [Josiah Neeley, Daily Caller]
- Spare that tree? Environmentalists battle Montana underbrush clearance aimed at preventing catastrophic fires [William Perry Pendley, MSLF] More on trees and power outages in Connecticut [WSJ, related earlier]
- New book on Endangered Species Act reform [James Burling, Federalist Society]
- Rural property owners foot the bill for California green policies [Steven Greenhut]
- “What are you in for?” “Backed-up toilets” [Shannen Coffin, NRO]
Great moments in public sector economics
I’ve got some observations at Cato at Liberty about the arguments one Montgomery County, Md. councilman has made for a public takeover of local electric utility Pepco — as well as some background about the trade-off often found between leafy splendor and storm-outage resilience in residential settings.
September 9 roundup
- Not a parody: economics professor sets off debate on “ugly rights” with suggestion of making unattractiveness of appearance a protected discrimination-law category [Daniel Hamermesh/NYT, PoL, Eric Crampton, Jon Hyman] Apparently Niall Ferguson needn’t worry [Telegraph]
- Feds sue banks and more than 130 executives, demanding billions over their role in the mortgage crisis; new “tobacco/asbestos” predicted [Biz Insider, more, yet more] Takes some cheek to cast Fannie and Freddie as victims [John Berlau, CEI]
- Also on mortgages: Rahm Emanuel’s unsound new “lender must cut the grass” ordinance [Funnell] California AG sues lawyers, telemarketers over class action loan modification scheme; lawyer fires back with civil rights suit [AP, ABA Journal] New York chief judge wants state to fund more lawyers to resist enforcement of mortgages [PoL]
- Related to last, on Civil Gideon’s “‘impossible dream’ of giving every civil litigant a lawyer” [Benjamin Barton & Stephanos Bibos, SSRN via Instapundit]
- Fallen tree damage from all these storms? Think twice before taking your neighbor to court [Ilya Somin]
- Stories you read here first: wider coverage for EEOC suit against trucking company for not letting alcoholic drive [Fox, earlier]
- Illinois advocates plan push for punitive civil suits against johns, strip club owners, sex-ad websites [NYT]