Some serve essentially as security guards for federal installations and lack much of an outside presence, but others — quite a few others, in fact — are capable of engaging in antics like SWAT-style environmental raids on rural settlements.
Posts Tagged ‘Environmental Protection Agency’
Environment roundup
- California officials profess surprise: fracking’s been going on for decades in their state [Coyote]
- Taxpayers fund Long Island Soundkeeper enviro group, affiliated with RFK Jr.’s Waterkeeper network, and a Connecticut state lawmaker does rather nicely out of that [Raising Hale]
- Backgrounder on Louisiana coastal erosion suit [New Orleans Times-Picayune] “Lawsuit Blaming Oil Companies For Wetland Loss Might As Well Blame The Plaintiffs” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- US ties for worst of 25 countries when it comes to delay in mining permits [Sharon Koss, NTU] “Number One in DataMining” [@sonodoc99]
- “BP Is Rapidly Becoming One Giant Law Firm” [Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week]
- “Mann v. Steyn — Mann wins round one” [Adler]
- An insider’s view of EPA and how it uses power [Brent Fewell]
Environmental roundup
- When government taking of land deprives a community association of a stream of income, is that a taking? [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus on Mariner’s Cove Townhomes Association v. U.S.; Tabarrok, Somin] “The Takings Clause Has No Expiration Date” [Burrus on Mehaffy v. U.S.] Plot of beloved Australian film The Castle hinges on eminent domain [Wikipedia via Jon Marco, WhatCulture]
- Once-hot Oil Drum blog signs off: “Peak oil arguments seem to have peaked well before oil and gas supplies.” [Jonathan Adler, Mark Perry, Mark Mills]
- Sorting out myths about fracking [Ronald Bailey] “DOE study: Fracking chemicals didn’t taint water” [Pennsylvania; AP]
- More about consent decrees between regulatory agencies and the environmental groups that sue them [Chris Prandoni/Capital Research Center, earlier]
- Debunking a study on genetically modified pig feed [Mark Lynas]
- Is the EPA even-handed as between FOIA requests from left and right? (part II) [Jillian Kay Melchior, earlier]
- D.C. scales back, but doesn’t abolish, minimum parking requirements for new in-town development, criticized by New Urbanists and some libertarians alike [Greater Greater Washington]
Environment roundup
- Slate: it’s “fascinating, in a horrified head-shaking …way” to hear RFK Jr. spin his “delusional and dangerous” theories about vaccines [Slate and more, my two cents on the wayward scion]
- What insurance industry behavior tells us about climate change [Eli Lehrer]
- Concern that EU regulations on registration of seed varieties could squeeze smalls, locals, heirlooms [Glyn Moody, TechDirt; Domenic Berry]
- Environmental suits as backdoor grab for policy control [U.S. Chamber, Ron Arnold, DC Examiner and more (“sweetheart litigation”), WLF]
- Symposium on conservatives and the environment: Jonathan Adler, Eli Lehrer, Shi-Ling Hsu and others [Duke Environmental and Policy Law Forum]
- U.K. study: cancer rates and mortality rates among pesticide workers are below the norm [Health and Safety Executive via Angela Logomasini, CEI]
- “Wi-fi made us sick” suit cost city of Portland $172K, but at least voters didn’t put sponsor on school board [Will Radik, Bad Skeptic]
- “EPA acknowledges releasing personal details on farmers” [Fox News] GOP senators introduce bill to curb EPA wetlands overreach [Ilya Shapiro]
- Attorneys’ fees often amount to 80-90% of settlement amounts: latest annual Prop 65 report is out [California attorney general’s office, background]
Don’t you just love regulation?
EPA-mandated diesel-engine governor shuts down ambulance carrying patient in cardiac arrest to emergency room. [WTTG; Washington, D.C.] The D.C. fire union says emissions-control engine governors, the result of an EPA mandate, have shut down rescue vehicles during missions at least three times since August. Following strenuous protests from rescue squads around the country, EPA last May waived the application of the rules for fire trucks and ambulances, but D.C. is apparently stuck with vehicles acquired before the waiver.
Environment roundup
- Can EPA use subregulatory guidance to dodge judicial review of formal notice-and-comment rulemaking? Appeals court says no [Allison Wood, WLF]
- “Outhouse blues: Salisbury Twp. tells 77-year-old to install $20,000 septic system he doesn’t want” [Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Online]
- Denying attorney fee in oil spill case, Texas judge questions authenticity of client signature [ABA Journal, Chamber-backed Southeast Texas Record]
- Why “climate justice” campaigns fail both the environment and the poor [Chris Foreman, The Breakthrough]
- Does the Yale Alumni Magazine often side with plaintiffs who sue to muzzle critics? [Neela Banerjee on Michael Mann lawsuit against National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mark Steyn, etc.]
- Anti-science, anti-humanity: Milan animal rights action trashes years of psychiatric research [Nature]
- Parody Tom-Friedman-bot must be at it again: “best place to start” response to Boston attack “is with a carbon tax” [Tim Blair] Too darn hot: “Dems warn climate change could drive women to ‘transactional sex'” [The Hill]
- Some California lawmakers seek to curb shakedown lawsuits under notorious Prop 65 chemical-labeling law [Sacramento Bee; Gov. Brown proposes reform]
Environment roundup
- Doughnut oil and the environment: NYT misses a story of unintended consequences [Ira Stoll, SmarterTimes]
- N.C.: “Guy Who Runs Wilderness Camp Told to Install Sprinklers, Use County Approved Lumber” [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
- “With Proposed Policy Change, EPA Fully Embraces Role of ‘Environmental Justice’ Advocate” [Cory Andrews, WLF]
- “While the taxes… are irritating, what has really killed my interest in expanding in California is the regulatory burden.” [Coyote on SLOLeaks blog; another California Coastal Commission horror story]
- Natural crop breeding = safe, biotech-assisted breeding = unsafe? Tale of the toxic potato teaches otherwise [Maggie Koerth-Baker, BoingBoing] (broken link fixed now)
- Peak Oil? Welcome instead to Trough Oil, as titanic new fossil fuel supplies begin coming online [Andrew Sullivan]
- Deregulation of accessory dwellings is a reform both free-marketeers and New Urbanists in search of density can get behind [David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington]
SCOTUS: courts should defer to agency’s interpretation of its own regs
Justice Scalia and the Ninth Circuit, cats and dogs lying down together? The conservative justice was the only dissenter the other day in a 7-1 Supreme Court decision overturning the Ninth Circuit in the consolidated cases of Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center and Georgia-Pacific West, Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center. In doing so, the Court upheld (as the Ninth Circuit had not) the entitlement of the Environmental Protection Agency, and by implication other federal agencies, to deference in interpreting the meaning of its own regulations — so-called Auer deference, as distinguished from Chevron deference in the interpretation of Congressionally enacted statutes. Roger Pilon at Cato sorts it out and concludes that there is nothing paradoxical about the line-up: Scalia is distinctively vigilant against the dangers of excessive delegation of legislative power to executive-branch regulators, and deference tends to intensify the effects of such delegation. (Update: omitted link included now)
Environment roundup
- Bill McKibben et al press Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against energy producers, hint at direct action [Andrew Sullivan]
- Billion-dollar compensation program may be unstoppable, though: “Cancer Not Increased by Exposure to World Trade Center 9/11 Attack Debris” [Ronald Bailey, Ted Frank/PoL, earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]
- “EPA cries ‘uncle’ in face of lawsuit, withdraws threat against W.Va. chicken farmer” [David Martosko, Daily Caller]
- Jim Manzi finds lead-and-crime thesis less “blindingly obvious” than does Kevin Drum [NRO, and Drum’s response]
- In state’s dispute with EPA, plenty of Virginia moderates think federal agency has overreached [A. Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times-Dispatch]
- “Lawsuits seek to generate “awareness” of global warming, costs states a bundle” [@andrewmgrossman on Laurence Hurley/EENews story; Michael Greve/Liberty and Law]
- EPA’s departing Jackson has been poster child for “we can’t wait” governance approach [Jim Huffman]
Environment roundup
- As wildlife policy goes wrong, it’s guano on the rocks for La Jolla [Matt Welch, language]
- Georgia-Pacific West vs. NEDC: “Millions of jobs at stake in logging case” [David Hampton, Wash. Times; Henry Miller, Forbes]
- Ontario environment ministry won’t investigate complaint of noise from neighbor’s basketball play [National Post, earlier]
- Maryland: Following state mandate, Howard County prepares to stifle farmland development without compensation [HoCoRising]
- Role of local government structure: “New England vs. Midwest Culture” [George Mattei, Urbanophile]
- More re: suits vs. utilities over Sandy outages [Bloomberg (Long Island), NJ.com] Pre-Sandy, NY pols kicked around Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) for decades [Nicole Gelinas/ NYP]
- “Reckless Endangerment: Global Warming in the Courts” [Michael Greve, Liberty and Law] Various interest groups have already locked themselves into EPA’s jury-rigged scheme to limit carbon emissions [Greve]