I’ve got a post up at Cato at Liberty expressing some doubts about the President’s new talk of smarter regulation. Stuart Shapiro points out that the “only truly new thing in” the regulatory reform package, the greater publicity that will be given to enforcement records, “could be somewhat revolutionary in its ability to force regulatory compliance.” From a perspective diametrically opposed to mine, Rena Steinzor confirms that the only example Obama gave of actual excessive regulation reversed on his watch — the former classification of saccharin as hazardous waste — is of at most trivial significance (& welcome Matthew Continetti/Weekly Standard, Frum Forum, Aaron @ Patterico, Point of Law, AllahPundit, ShopFloor readers).
Posts Tagged ‘Environmental Protection Agency’
Carbon dioxide as pollutant
And a choice quote (New York Times via Taranto) on how the legal system disposes of it all:
“If the administration gets it wrong, we’re looking at years of litigation, legislation and public and business outcry,” said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified so as not to provide an easy target for the incoming Republicans. “If we get it right, we’re facing the same thing.”
Federalist Society videos online
The Federalist Society has posted numerous videos from its recent National Lawyers’ Convention, including sessions on the aggressive regulatory stance of today’s Environmental Protection Agency, the constitutionality of Obamacare, anonymity and the First Amendment in media and campaign-regulation law, NYU’s Richard Epstein debating Yale’s Bill Eskridge on the court battle over California’s Prop 8, recusal and campaign rules for judges, Dodd-Frank, and the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case on accreditation of student groups, among other topics. And civil procedure/Iqbal-Twombly buffs may be interested in a luncheon panel held just yesterday in D.C. (I was in the audience) in which four law professors (Don Elliott of Yale, Martin Redish and Ronald Allen of Northwestern, and Rick Esenberg of Marquette) outlined ideas for reforming the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to reduce discovery costs and improve screening of cases in the earliest stages of filing.
The video above is of the Society’s 10th annual Barbara Olson Memorial Lecture, in which Second Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs provocatively criticizes legal academia and other precincts of influential legal thinking for misunderstanding the role of the military and its relation to the law.
September 23 roundup
- Could bald employees sue under genetic-bias law? [Delaware Employment Law]
- EPA under pressure in bedbug battle [Atlantic Wire, Time]
- “Child Safety Advocates Push for Changes to Prevent Hot-Car Deaths” [Fair Warning]
- Proof of Living Constitution Theory? iPhone Constitution app is now on version 1.3.8 [Magliocca, Co-Op]
- “North Carolina’s Corrupted Crime Lab” [Radley Balko]
- “The folly of needless alcohol laws” [Conor Friedersdorf, The Daily Dish]
- “Judge Posner opinion on overwarning” [PoL, Drug and Device Law]
- Annals of zero tolerance: No scissors allowed at ribbon-cutting ceremony at Pittsburgh airport [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
August 28 roundup
- EPA considers petition to ban lead sporting ammunition and fishing sinkers [National Shooting Sports Federation via Zincavage]
- Claremont-McKenna economist Eric Helland, known for his work on litigation policy, joins the group blog Truth on the Market;
- European Union expresses concern about provisions of Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act [Sidley Austin, PDF letter courtesy Learning Resources]
- Michigan judge rules two waitresses can proceed with weight discrimination claim against Hooters [WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- San Francisco prosecutors charge former MoFo partner and wife with misappropriating nearly $400,000 from funds earmarked for autistic son’s services [The Recorder]
- When litigants demand to depose the opponent’s CEO [Ted at PoL]
- Wal-Mart seeks Supreme Court review of billion-dollar job-bias class action [Ohio Employer’s Law]
- If you want to hire a home attendant to keep grandma from needing a nursing home, better hope you’re not in California [five years ago on Overlawyered]
EPA treats milk spills like oil spills
Sounds like a parody but isn’t; I explain at Cato at Liberty.
Do as we say dept.: EPA and lead
The Environmental Protection Agency — currently rolling out new regulations expected to substantially boost the cost of home renovation projects and drive many smaller, less formal repair providers from the market, all in the name of lead reduction — turns out to have lead exposures at its own headquarters exceeding the relevant federal standards in one case by 92,500 percent [Daily Caller] Can it fine itself?
EPA vs. older homes
New federal regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at curbing exposure to dust that might contain lead paint, will result in federal certification of many building-maintenance specialties and step up pressure against informal unlicensed suppliers of handyman and carpentry services:
On April 22, the Environmental Protection Agency is slated to enact rules requiring EPA certification for contractors working on homes built before lead paint was banned in 1978. The rule, aimed at limiting exposure to lead, applies to carpenters, plumbers, heating and air conditioning workers, window installers and others.
Two-thirds of U.S. homes and apartments (78 million out of 120 million) were built before 1978, says Calli Schmidt of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), citing Census Bureau data. She says half of the pre-1978 homes don’t contain lead but the rule, depending on implementation, might apply to all of them.
Making it unlawful to practice home renovation without federal certification will assuredly reduce the supply and raise the cost of renovations, the extent of the shift varying perhaps from one community to another depending on how professionalized the relevant markets already are. One result of shifting the cost curve will be to encourage teardowns of otherwise sound housing stock. Some other properties that remain occupied will simply go without renovations and repairs, with unpredictable (but probably not good) consequences for health and safety. [USA Today via Nick Gillespie, Reason] As for the prospect that the federal government will apply any sort of common-sense appraisal of the actual benefits of spending millions to avoid infinitesimal or nonexistent lead exposures, I’ll believe that when they fix CPSIA. More: WSJ (sub-only)
New at Forbes.com: RFK Jr. to EPA?
I’ve got a new opinion column just out at Forbes.com on the reports that president-elect Obama may be considering America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure®, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this week I posted on the topic here and here (welcome Jonathan Adler/Volokh, Ron Coleman/Likelihood of Success readers).
More: Orac advises writing letters to the Obama transition team urging them to consider the harm to their credibility should a figure such as RFK Jr. get the nod. His comments section includes many good examples of such letters, and Kathleen Seidel, autism blogger extraordinaire, contributes one at her site as well. See also this perhaps unintentionally ironic dispatch by MSNBC’s Alan Boyle on Thursday listing as among president-elect Obama’s “top tasks” “taking the ideology out of scientific issues” and quoting Chris Mooney, author of “The Republican War on Science,” to the effect that “the war has ended, and science has won”. The Center for American Progress’s ScienceProgress site, to which Mooney contributes, doesn’t seem to have weighed in on the RFK Jr. matter.
And: tons of mostly helpful blog reactions. At ScienceBlogs, besides Orac, there are the influential P.Z. Myers/Pharyngula (“another irrational purveyor of woo and fluffy substanceless hysteria”), Chad Orzel, Uncertain Principles (“his highest-profile activity in recent years has been the promotion of nutbar conspiracy theories”), Mike the Mad Biologist (“every bit as ridiculous as creationism”), Around the Clock (“He is the typical paranoid, conspiracy-theorist, hyperbolic quack. A kind of person shunned, ignored and marginalized by the Democratic Party for decades now for two good reasons: such people’s judgment cannot be trusted, and such people give the party a bad name”), James Hrynyshyn (“More worrisome is the fact that Obama on at least one campaign occasion, pandered to the anti-vaccine crowd by describing the science on the subject as “inconclusive” despite loads of studies that show no link”, PalMD, ERV, Science Woman, Effect Measure, SunClipse, and Mark Hoofnagle. Plus: Skepchick, DarkSyde @ DailyKos, Rondi Adamson (“gives me the creeps…The guy’s a complete wingnut”), Wendy Williams, Steven Novella, Neurologica (“This would be an unmitigated disaster for science in government … Putting a known antiscientific crank in this position is inexcusable”), The Amateur Scientist (“an absolutely terrible idea … the guy’s bad news”), Brandon Keim, WiredScience (“America doesn’t need more political officials who skew science to fit personal beliefs.”), Thinking Outside, Science Avenger, Colossus of Rhodey, Politico. Liz Ditz has a great roundup of critical opinions.
Further: Edward John Craig at NRO “Planet Gore” here and here.
“You’ve got yourself an unconfirmable nominee”
The buzz about a possible seat in the Cabinet for hothead scion and anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues with a second article in Politico, this time shifting the speculation to the Environmental Protection Agency and citing “Democratic officials” who claim Obama is “strongly considering” RFK, Jr. for that post (Mike Allen, “Obama considers stars for Cabinet”, Nov. 5; earlier). Tim Noah at Slate shouts a timely “don’t”:
Environmental Protection Agency or Interior Department. Do not hire Robert Kennedy Jr. He’s too partisan and kind of a nut when it comes to policy. Check out this dangerously alarmist 2005 Rolling Stone piece about the purported link between autism and childhood vaccines. (To learn why Kennedy’s piece was alarmist, see “Sticking Up for Thimerosal” by Arthur Allen in Slate, August 2005.) Throw in Kennedy’s 1983 heroin bust, and you’ve got yourself an unconfirmable nominee.
(“The Uncabinet”, Nov. 5). Jonathan Adler @ Volokh, frequent vaccine-blogger Orac/Respectful Insolence, Jason Zengerle at the New Republic, and Hans Bader @ CEI are all on the case as well. Even David Roberts at GristMill is very far from enthusiastic, to say the least. I said exactly what I thought of Kennedy’s book Crimes Against Nature in a New York Post review, and our tagged posts here provide a lot of background on the celebrity environmentalist.
More: Orac returns with a lengthy, devastating and link-rich second post; Mike Dunford/Questionable Authority (“The politicization of science is bad no matter who does it. It wasn’t just bad when the Republicans were involved. It will be just as bad if it’s a Democrat doing it.”); Eric Berlin (“hope it’s someone’s idea of a bad joke”). And Michael Moynihan, Reason “Hit and Run” (“nutty” pro-Hugo-Chavez rants).