- Behind a YouTube anti-fracking video labeled “Hydraulic Fracturing turns gardenhose to flamethrower,” there’s quite a story [Star-Telegram]
- BPA-endocrine alarms: “Why Nick Kristof’s Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Us All” [Trevor Butterworth, Forbes]
- Incy wincy spider shuts down $15 million construction project [Fox]
- Regulatory Balkanization of gasoline market worsens price volatility [Morriss/Boudreaux via David Henderson; more, WSJ] Will CAFE sink GM? [Holman Jenkins via same]
- “After a fire at a massive oil plant in California, residents want compensation. But it’s not that easy” [Above the Law]
- “Dispatches from the Duke Conference on ‘Conservative Visions of Our Environmental Future'” [Jonathan Adler]
- Broadway, dark? “The high cost of closing Indian Point” [Lesser & Bryce, NYP]
Posts Tagged ‘environment’
Prop 37 and GMOs, cont’d
The California proposition [earlier here, here, and here] is now running into a wave of disapproving editorials in California newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee. Tyler Cowen administers a well deserved rebuke to tendentious NYT food-policy columnist Mark Bittman [Marginal Revolution and followup] Also check out the analysis by Jonathan Adler [“How Not to Label Biotech Foods,” New Atlantis] and Baylen Linnekin [“California’s GMO Labeling Law Isn’t the Answer,” Reason] And in California Political Review, John Hrabe notes my Daily Caller piece in the course of observations about the ambition of some Californians to play regulator to the world. (& Matt Bogard)
Somewhat relatedly, it is now clear that Vitamin-A-laden golden rice could fight child blindness arising from nutritional deficiency in the underdeveloped world; alas, it’s being held back by Greenpeace anti-GMO efforts [Margaret Wente/Toronto Globe and Mail; Art Caplan, NBC]
Concord, Mass., bans single-serving plastic water bottles
“According to the bylaw approved by residents in April, it will be illegal to sell non-sparkling and unflavored drinking water in single-serving plastic bottles of 1 liter or less in Concord on or after Jan. 1, 2013.” Jean Hill, the chief proponent of the measure, cited environmental concerns and said, “I feel bottled water is a waste of money.” Thanks for saving us from that temptation, ma’am! [Boston Globe; Wicked Local Concord]
“Federal judge dismisses claims in fatal mountain goat attack”
The judge ruled that “even though the park could have acted more quickly to kill or relocate the goat, its actions are immune from lawsuits under the Federal Tort Claims Act because they involved an exercise of discretion related to public policy.” [Peninsula Daily News, Washington; AP; earlier here and here]
Environmental roundup
- Texas whups Administration in court on cross-state air pollution rule and coal-fired power: “It is unfortunate that EPA continues to misuse the Clean Air Act.” [TCEQ press release, WSJ editorial]
- As upstate New York hopes for Greek-yogurt boom, enviros defend extra-strict factory-farm (“CAFO”) regs [Abby Wisse Schachter, NY Post]
- Land-use control and economic inequality in America [Virginia Postrel, Bloomberg; Randal O’Toole, Cato]
- House Oversight report confirms EPA lead-paint renovation rule continues to frustrate Main Street [Angela Logomasini; earlier here, etc.]
- Illegal in some Western states to collect rainwater for one’s own use [Fox, Oregon; N.Y. Times, 2009]
- GAO releases report on attorney fee awards for environmental citizen suits [Michael Tremoglie, LNL] “Mandate Madness: When Sue and Settle Just Isn’t Enough” [House Oversight hearing]
- “EPA exonerates fracking in Pennsylvania” [Ken Green, AEIdeas; Dimock, Pa., of “Gasland” fame]
Gibson Guitar agrees to $300,000 fine
The fine is well below the cost of mounting a legal defense in a case that had become a symbol of trigger-happy regulatory prosecution. [Nick Gillespie/Reason, Ann Althouse, AP] Besides, Ted Frank argues, “Gibson was planning on setting up camp at the RNC to promote the problem of overcriminalization,” so the Obama administration gets something of value too in an election season.
More: “The Lacey Act: Protectionism Through Criminalization” [K. William Watson, Cato at Liberty]
Environmental law roundup
- EPA continues crackdown on older-home renovation in the name of lead paint caution [Angela Logomasini, earlier, see also re: lab testing]
- Solyndra’s many enablers: 127 in House GOP just backed federal energy loan guarantees [Tad DeHaven/Cato]
- “In defense of genetically modified crops” [Mother Jones, no kidding] “How California’s GMO Labeling Law Could Limit Your Food Choices and Hurt the Poor” [Steve Sexton, Freakonomics]
- “EPA fines oil refiners for failing to use nonexistent biofuel” [Howard Portnoy, Hot Air]
- Consultant eyed in Chevron-Ecuador case [PoL] Radio campaign targets conservatives on behalf of trial lawyers’ side [Fowler/NRO] Lawyer suing Chevron: “We are delivering a bunch of checks to [NY Comptroller] DiNapoli today” [NYP]
- Getting taxpayers off the hook: Congress might curb flood insurance subsidies [Mark Calabria/Cato]
- “Lessons from British Columbia’s Carbon Tax” [Adler]
Environmental roundup
- Nebraska Sen. Johanns proposes bill to curb EPA surveillance overflights (which, contrary to some erroneous reports going around, are manned flights) [Daily Caller, earlier]
- “Time to Discard the Precautionary Principle at the CPSC” [Nancy Nord]
- Victimology beats science with 9/11 dust fund [Point of Law, ACSH] Two NYC plaintiff’s firms fight over $50 million in 9/11-responder fees [Reuters]
- “Court dismisses climate change ‘public trust’ suit” [Katie Owens, WLF]
- Erin Brockovich promotes Fridley, Minnesota cancer cluster, local man “eager to hear” her spiel [StarTrib, earlier]
- Jonathan Adler guestblogs on environmental policy at The Atlantic [Volokh]
- Businesses’ donations on environmental advocacy? Never trust content from “Union of Concerned Scientists” [Ron Bailey]
- Talking back to “Gasland,” the anti-fracking advocacy flick [Ron Bailey and more, Mark Perry, Business Week on local economic impact]
Who snatched the light bulbs?
If you’re annoyed at federal bossiness, don’t just blame environmentalist groups. A group called the National Electrical Manufacturers Association is keen on restricting your choice, and it’s located right in Rosslyn, Va. where it can do something about it. [Future of Capitalism]
Ninth Circuit judge tees off on colleagues’ environmentalism
As green czars go, the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and its administrator are at least circumscribed by law, the powers of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals much less so. When a majority of the circuit ruled the other day that California could not resume permitting suction panning of riverbeds for traces of gold, Judge Milan Smith Jr. along with three colleagues dissented with some asperity. “Here we go again,” he began, and went on to cite Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians. To quote the WSJ Law Blog:
No legislature or regulatory agency would enact sweeping rules that create such economic chaos, shutter entire industries, and cause thousands of people to lose their jobs. That is because the legislative and executive branches are directly accountable to the people through elections, and its members know they would be removed swiftly from office were they to enact such rules,” he wrote.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “I believe the record is clear that our court has strayed with lamentable frequency from its constitutionally limited role.”