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Almost a decade after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans-area residents are still trying to hold their government accountable for mistakes that allowed a monstrous flood to devastate their city. Last week, in a case called St. Bernard Parish v. United States, a federal judge helped their cause. In a dispute involving a major navigation channel controlled […]

With the announcement that GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra received the outsized compensation of $16.2 million in 2014, what should have been a year of humiliation and soul-searching for that feckless automaker instead ended on a disturbingly self-satisfied note.  Purely from a public relations perspective, Barra worked hard for her money.  Appearing repentant, sincere, […]

Who could have imagined that the takings case of Horne v Department of Agriculture argued in the Supreme Court last week might portend revival of the doctrine of public trust ownership of wildlife?  But it might. Really. The Horne case involves a claim that an arcane raisin-marketing program administered by the Department of Agriculture effects a taking by requiring […]

Further reflections on the April 16th Oral Argument in Murray v. EPA and West Virginia v. EPA In an earlier blog entry, I predicted that the D.C. Circuit will refuse, on standard administrative law grounds, to consider the arguments of the petitioning states and coal and utility companies for overturning EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plant rule.  In short, […]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has reported that the occupational fatality rate of 3.3 deaths per 100,000 workers for 2013 was the lowest reported rate since the BLS started using its current tracking methodology in 2006.  That’s good news, but we’ve got a very long way to go still. The simple truth is that […]

Nearly five years ago, BP introduced a flippered mammal Americans never knew we had: the Gulf Walrus! If you don’t know the story, you should, because the tale of the Gulf Walrus tells you everything you need to know about what was wrong with deepwater drilling back in 2010, and worse, still is.  The story […]

Forty-five years ago I joined hundreds of people in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia for the first Earth Day.  The sad state of the environment on that day was all too apparent.  The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it caught on fire the year before.   The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill is still […]

Urban parks are a much-prized resource. They provide city dwellers with safe places to relax, walk their dogs, supervise their children at play, plant gardens, contemplate nature, pursue recreational activities, and escape the multiple stresses of urban life. At the same time, however, particularly in prosperous cities where open land is scarce and real estate […]

Last week, the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument on a highly unusual attempt to short-circuit EPA’s rulemaking process for greenhouse gas regulation of existing power plants.  Despite statutory and constitutional hurdles to premature litigation, the petitioners—the coal-fired industry and coal-producing states—argued that the importance of the proposed rule justifies court intervention. The rule’s importance is […]