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Showing 2,810 results

Alice Kaswan | June 13, 2012

Environmental Justice and GHG Cap-and-Trade: It’s More than a Complaint

California environmental justice groups filed a complaint last week with the federal Environmental Protection Agency arguing that California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program violates Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits state programs receiving federal funding from causing discriminatory impacts.  They allege that the cap-and-trade program will fail to benefit all communities […]

Ben Somberg | June 12, 2012

Conservatives Blast Obama Administration for Its Environmental Actions in 2007

Rep. Joe Barton, speaking at a hearing last week, stuck it to President Obama’s EPA (at 39:00): In Idaho, just recently, the Obama Administration went against a family called the Sacketts on a wetlands issue. Again, Mr. Chairman, the Congress sets the rules, and the Administration enforces them. This Obama Administration, in the case of […]

Lisa Heinzerling | June 8, 2012

Antibiotics, Animals, and Agency Discretion

Cross-posted from Georgetown Law Faculty Blog. When an agency defends over three decades of inaction on an important problem by saying that acting would take too long, one hopes a judge reviewing the agency’s inaction will see through the pretense.  This is exactly what happened this week, when a federal magistrate judge in New York ruled […]

Martha McCluskey | June 8, 2012

Scientific Integrity at Risk in Fracking Policy Debate

The natural gas industry’s campaign against increased federal oversight of shale gas development has recently produced a spurt of “dirty science” minimizing the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”  The University at Buffalo, the branch of the State University of New York where I teach, recently launched its new “Shale Resources and Society Institute” […]

Ben Somberg | June 6, 2012

CPR Member Scholar Joel Mintz Testifying at House Hearing on EPA Enforcement

The House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power holds a hearing today on “EPA Enforcement Priorities and Practices.” CPR Member Scholar Joel Mintz, Professor at Nova Southeastern University Law Center, will be testifying. From his testimony: .. during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, the civil penalties assessed against […]

Yee Huang | June 5, 2012

New CPR Report Assesses the CAFO and Animal Agriculture Programs in Maryland, Pennsylvania

Today CPR releases Manure in the Bay: A Report on Industrial Animal Agriculture in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The paper provides a snapshot of the federal Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) permit program under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and how these states are implementing this program.  The report provides recommendations for strengthening these programs to […]

Holly Doremus | June 4, 2012

Ninth Circuit Corrects Itself on Gold Mining and the ESA

Cross-posted from Legal Planet. The en banc 9th Circuit issued its opinion Friday in Karuk Tribe v. US Forest Service. This opinion brings a welcome reversal of a panel opinion from last April which had ruled in a split decision that the Forest Service did not have to consult with the wildlife agencies before authorizing […]

Sandra Zellmer | May 30, 2012

Protecting Our Greatest Asset: Ratifying the Convention on Biological Diversity

a(broad) perspective Today’s post, co-authored by CPR Member Scholar Sandra Zellmer  and Policy Analyst Yee Huang, is the fourth in a series on a recent CPR white paper, Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties. Each month, this series will discuss one of these ten treaties. Previous posts are here. Convention […]

James Goodwin | May 30, 2012

Spurred on by Industry, OIRA Weakens Rule to Prevent Fatigue-Related Aviation Catastrophes

Last December, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finalized a new aviation safety rule designed to prevent excessive pilot fatigue, a problem that had contributed to at least one high-profile airline disaster—the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash near Buffalo, New York, in February of 2009, which killed 50 and injured four—as well as to a disturbing […]