For an analysis of the news from California this week -- where the legislature passed a group of bills Wednesday on water protection -- do check out Richard Frank on Legal Planet, who looks at the good and the less-than-good.
It commits substantial public funding and commitment to desperately needed Delta ecosystem restoration. The bill package fundamentally re-organizes the state governance system that will oversee Delta regulatory, planning and restoration efforts. And it reflects long-overdue and necessary steps to address water rights enforcement and water conservation efforts on a statewide basis.
But, he says:
The water conservation mandates contained in the legislation are largely aspirational, and lack strong means of enforcement. The water rights reform provisions were greatly weakened in the course of the legislative debates, and it’s questionable at best whether they will have much long-term effect in reforming California’s dysfunctional water rights system. Finally–and most importantly–it is far from certain that California voters will be willing to approve the major, new public indebtedness needed to fund Delta ecosystem restoration and related projects.
Showing 2,828 results
Ben Somberg | November 6, 2009
For an analysis of the news from California this week — where the legislature passed a group of bills Wednesday on water protection — do check out Richard Frank on Legal Planet, who looks at the good and the less-than-good. It commits substantial public funding and commitment to desperately needed Delta ecosystem restoration. The bill […]
Amy Sinden | November 5, 2009
Cass Sunstein had barely begun settling in to his new position as Administrator of OMB’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in September, when OIRA released a draft of OMB’s 2009 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations. Today marks the deadline for submitting comments to OMB on the draft, and I […]
Alice Kaswan | November 5, 2009
The latest version of the Senate climate bill, released by Senator Boxer on Friday, October 30, retains EPA’s authority to establish meaningful facility regulations under the Clean Air Act (CAA) while freeing EPA of the obligation to implement CAA provisions that are ill-suited to controlling greenhouse gases (GHG). (Section 128(g): Amendments Clarifying Regulation of Greenhouse […]
James Goodwin | November 4, 2009
Last month the National Research Council (NRC) released Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use. Properly understood, the NRC report is an admirable attempt to bring the consequences of energy use into sharp focus by putting those consequences into terms that are readily understandable by the general public. The NRC recognizes […]
Ben Somberg | November 4, 2009
CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies has a piece on the Atlantic’s food website today — “Saving Seafood From Extinction” — on how the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is making a last-ditch effort to overhaul the nation’s devastated fisheries. The agency’s new regulations — including lower catch limites — have faced some opposition, but the choice […]
Daniel Farber | November 3, 2009
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Apparently, substantially safer designs for nuclear reactors are now available. But the safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste is a significant challenge and a yet unresolved problem. Presently, waste is stored at over a hundred facilities across the country, within seventy-five miles of the homes of 161 million people. The […]
Matthew Freeman | November 2, 2009
A little bragging is in order this morning. Last week, CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity and Wendy Wagner won the University of Texas’s Hamilton Book Author Award for their book, Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research. The award is given to the author(s) of what is judged the best book by University of Texas […]
Matthew Freeman | October 30, 2009
One of the great political communications successes of the past 30 years has been the right wing’s relentless assault on the American regulatory system. Think of the words and images that have come to be associated with “regulation” in that time: red tape, bureaucrats, green eye shades, piles of paper stretching to the ceiling, and more. And the […]
Ben Somberg | October 30, 2009
This guest post is written by Thomas Tolin, Assistant Professor of Economics at West Chester University, and Martin Patwell, Director of the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities at WCU. In the recently published SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance the authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen […]