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Showing 301 results

Daniel Farber

Sho Sato Professor of Law

Daniel A. Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law and Director of the California Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Daniel Farber | July 25, 2019

ACE or Joker? Trump’s Self-Defeating Climate Rule

Originally published on Legal Planet. To hear President Trump talk, the point of deregulation is to reduce the burden of regulation on industry. But weirdly enough, that doesn't turn out to be true of Trump's effort to repeal Obama's Clean Power Plan (CPP) and replace it with his own Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Both […]

Daniel Farber | July 18, 2019

Justice Stevens and the Rule of (Environmental) Law

Originally published on Legal Planet There's already been a lot written in the aftermath of Justice Stevens's death, including Ann Carlson's excellent Legal Planet post earlier this week. I'd like to add something about an aspect of his jurisprudence that had great relevance to environmental law: his belief in the rule of law, and specifically, […]

Daniel Farber | July 15, 2019

Where’s the Beef?

Originally published on Legal Planet Mississippi recently passed a law that has the effect of banning terms like "veggie burger." It's easy to imagine other states passing similar laws. From an environmental view, that's problematic, because beef in particular is connected with much higher greenhouse gas emissions than plant products. It's not just the methane […]

Daniel Farber | July 8, 2019

The Witching Auer

Originally published on Legal Planet. The Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Kisor v. Wilkie was eagerly awaited by administrative law experts. It is one skirmish in the ongoing war over deference to agencies. In this case, the issue was whether to overrule the Auer doctrine, which requires courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation […]

Daniel Farber | July 1, 2019

The Census Case and the Delegation Issue

Originally published on Legal Planet. In a recent decision, four of the conservative Supreme Court Justices indicated a desire to limit the amount of discretion that Congress can give administrative agencies. If taken literally, some of the language they used would hobble the government by restricting agencies like EPA to "filling in the details" or […]

Daniel Farber | June 27, 2019

Justice Gorsuch versus the Administrative State

Originally published on Legal Planet. Gundy v. United States was a case involving a fairly obscure statute regulating sex offenders, but some have seen it as a harbinger of the destruction of the modern administrative state. In a 4-1-3 split, the Court turned away a constitutional challenge based on a claim that Congress had delegated […]

Daniel Farber | June 13, 2019

Pollution Bursts and Public Health

Originally published on Legal Planet. When a facility installs and operates the required pollution control equipment, we normally think of the pollution problem as solved. But there still may be bursts of pollution associated with start-up, shut-down, accidents, or external events. A recent study of pollution in Texas shows that these events have substantial health […]

Daniel Farber | June 10, 2019

Updates on the War on Science

Originally published on Legal Planet. The Trump administration's hostile attitude toward science has continued unabated. The administration has used a triad of strategies: efforts to defund research, suppression of scientific findings, and embrace of fringe science. Budget. The administration continues to favor deep cuts in research support. Its initial 2020 budget proposal calls for a 13 […]

Daniel Farber | May 28, 2019

Trump EPA Hiding Hundreds of Deaths in Plain View

According to press reports, EPA is preparing to ignore possible deaths caused by concentrations of pollutants occurring below the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). This is a key issue in a lot of decisions about pollution reduction. For instance, there is no NAAQS for mercury, but pollution controls on mercury would, as a side benefit, […]