Blog

CPR Member Scholars published another bumper crop of op-eds this past month. We maintain a running list on our op-eds page, but to save CPRBlog readers a click or two, here’s a quick rundown: On March 3, David Driesen had a piece in The Hill – that’s a Washington, D.C., outlet aimed at the policy community […]

This op-ed originally ran in the Raleigh News & Observer. President Trump’s new “energy” executive order is an attempt to roll back Obama regulations on climate change, and even make considerations of climate change disappear from much of the policymaking process altogether. That’s quite a lot to accomplish by executive order, and despite all the […]

Donald Trump's anti-climate action executive order is, as CPR President Rob Verchick puts it, a classic act of bullying. As I describe in an annotated version of the order, it is also irrational, failing to achieve the very aims it purports to support while inflicting damage to our climate, environment, natural resources, wildlife, and yes […]

Donald Trump has been in office only 68 days, and already I’ve passed the threshold from shock to boredom. His order to erase climate change from federal policy, preceded by a speech before captive members of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only seals the deal. I served at the EPA during President Obama’s first term, […]

This op-ed originally ran in The South Florida Sun Sentinel. The most drastic cut in President Donald Trump’s recently released budget outline is to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency tasked by law with setting and enforcing national standards to limit water, air, and land pollution; conducting scientific research to protect our health and the environment; and assisting […]

Yale economist William Baumol has written extensively on the connection between innovation and economic productivity. He has demonstrated that the United States has long been committed to promoting innovation, and through innovation, virtuous circles of economic growth are created. Unfortunately, the current administration appears committed to curtailing, even stopping, that growth. The president’s first budget […]

In the early 1970s, Congress passed the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act on nearly unanimous votes. The overwhelming support for these new laws reflected not only the horrific condition of America’s air, water, and landscape at the time, but also an appreciation of the collective action problem states faced, necessitating federal action. The […]

Last year around this time, I happily deleted this headline, "A Dark Day for the Bay," which I was preparing to use for a blog post in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of the American Farm Bureau Federation and other plaintiffs in their challenge to the Chesapeake Bay […]

As part of a coalition of public interest organizations working toward a responsible federal budget that protects people and the planet, I released the following statement on President Trump’s reckless budget proposal that guts the EPA, eliminates federal funding for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, and more.  “The president’s ‘skinny budget’ is a particularly apt […]