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David Hunter | February 27, 2012
a(broad) perspective Today’s post is first 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. Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels Adopted and Opened for Signature on June […]
| February 23, 2012
On February 28, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum, a case with far-reaching implications for efforts to hold corporations accountable when they commit or are complicit in abuses of human rights. For over fifty years, Shell has extracted oil from Nigeria, causing great harm to the environment and people […]
Rena Steinzor | February 22, 2012
Imagine for a moment that you’rethe chief executive of a company that manufactures chemicals used in plastics that become consumer products, especially plastic picnic ware. The head of your product development lab reports that she has just gotten some troubling results regarding one of your biggest sellers—a chemical agent that makes it possible for plastic […]
Robert Verchick | February 22, 2012
Mardi Gras Float, 2011 Well, another magnificent Mardi Gras has ended, and at this point, I’d normally be slouched on the sofa sipping a tomato juice (neat) and sorting beads. But not this year. That’s because next week, squadrons of lawyers, journalists, petroleum engineers, and fisher folk are scheduled to descend on New Orleans, […]
Kirsten Engel | February 21, 2012
On Feb. 28 and 29, the D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear arguments on a suite of industry-led challenges to EPA-issued greenhouse gas rules. While attention has focused on industry’s challenge to EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) endanger the environment, industry’s challenge to the greenhouse gas permitting “tailoring” rule – a rule limiting the […]
Daniel Farber | February 20, 2012
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Governor Romney has endorsed an idea called regulatory budgeting, but it really means capping protection for public health. Romney’s position paper explains the concept as follows: To force agencies to limit the costs they are imposing on society, and to provide the certainty that businesses crave, a system of regulatory caps […]
Matt Shudtz | February 17, 2012
Today EPA released the first part of its long-awaited reassessment of the human health risks posed by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, a chemical considered to be the most toxic of the dioxin compounds and the stuff that made Agent Orange so bad for its victims. It’s bittersweet news: on the one hand, the decades-long stretch between EPA’s first […]
Rena Steinzor | February 17, 2012
The Economist’s February 18 edition offers a cover package of five articles on “Over-regulated America” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Our British friends want you to know there’s a problem here in the States that needs fixing: A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in […]
Sandra Zellmer | February 16, 2012
Last month, President Obama denied TransCanada’s permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline because a congressionally mandated deadline did not allow enough time to evaluate the project once Nebraska completed its analysis for re-routing of the pipeline around the Sand Hills. A January 26-29 poll from Hart Research Associates found that, after hearing arguments for and […]