A few notes on the Chinese drywall issue from the past weeks:
The CPSC announced that it was expanding its investigation to include some American-made drywall, following some reports of similar problems -- bad odors and pipe corrosion. But meanwhile, the Bradenton Herald asked "Is scope of Chinese drywall problem exaggerated?" Reporter Duane Marsteller notes that "100,000" has become an often-repeated number for how many homes are affected, but that in fact it's quite unclear.
About 300 people rallied in Florida over the weekend calling for a stronger response to the issue. Floridians and Louisianans, and their members of Congress, remain upset over the speed of CPSC's response. Last week, a deadline passed for joining the big class action suit against Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. -- set to be heard in a U.S. Circuit Court in New Orleans in February. The judge ordered the complaint to be filed by today.
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Ben Somberg | December 9, 2009
A few notes on the Chinese drywall issue from the past weeks: The CPSC announced that it was expanding its investigation to include some American-made drywall, following some reports of similar problems — bad odors and pipe corrosion. But meanwhile, the Bradenton Herald asked “Is scope of Chinese drywall problem exaggerated?” Reporter Duane Marsteller notes […]
Daniel Farber | December 7, 2009
Today, EPA made its long-expected official finding: climate change is real, and we human beings are the cause. More than two years after the Supreme Court ordered EPA to address the issue, EPA has now formally ruled that greenhouse gases cause climate change that endangers human health or welfare. EPA also found that motor vehicles […]
Victor Flatt | December 7, 2009
Today, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opens in Copenhagen. I will be a credentialed observer from non-governmental academic and research organizations including the Center for Progressive Reform and the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation, and Resources (CLEAR) at the University of North Carolina […]
Ben Somberg | December 4, 2009
CPR Member Scholars Victor Flatt and David Hunter, along with several guest contributors, will be writing for CPRBlog from the climate talks in Copenhagen. Stay tuned.
Frank Ackerman | December 4, 2009
Once upon a time, EPA and other agencies labored under the yoke of a cruel regime that was contemptuous of the “reality-based community,” but intimately aware of the needs and desires of the energy industry. Climate policy didn’t really happen in those days. Then the world changed. In the first year of the new regime, […]
Rena Steinzor | December 3, 2009
As reporters dug deeper on our post yesterday about the return of Randy Lutter, chief economist at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the George W. Bush Administration, to “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein’s office, OMB spokesman Tom Gavin worked to downplay the significance of Lutter’s reappearance. Gavin confirmed that Lutter was in fact ensconced […]
Rena Steinzor | December 2, 2009
For a number of days now, we’ve been hearing rumors that Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s “regulatory czar,” was on the verge of hiring conservative economist Randall Lutter to join him at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Few personnel developments could be more discouraging to those hopeful that the Obama Administration will fulfill […]
Holly Doremus | December 2, 2009
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Precisely what the Clean Water Act requires of point sources that discharge to already-polluted waterways has long been a point of confusion. Now, according to Inside EPA, EPA may revise the rules it applies to new permits on impaired waterways. A rulemaking seems far from certain at this point — the […]
Matt Shudtz | December 1, 2009
Yesterday came and went with no announcement from the FDA on the safety of BPA in food packaging. The agency had created a self-imposed November 30 deadline for releasing a new finding, and in the intervening months, a number of new studies on the health effects of BPA have been released and FDA has brought […]