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Showing 2,923 results

James Goodwin | May 24, 2010

Eye on OIRA: No Room for a More Compassionate CBA in EPA’s Coal Ash Rule

“Although the 1976 RCRA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act statute does not require benefit-cost justification of RCRA regulations, this RIA regulatory impact analysis presents a qualitative benefit analysis for compliance with OMB’s 2003 ‘Circular A-4: Regulatory Analysis’ best practices guidance.” This statement comes from the executive summary to the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) that EPA sent to […]

Victor Flatt | May 21, 2010

Don’t Blame Tony Hayward: Why We Need Laws and Regulations That Specifically Hold Parties Liable for the Harm They Cause

BP CEO Tony Hayward has been careful to say his company will pay for the "clean-up" from the oil spill — meaning, not the damages. But if past disasters are any guide, the clean-up will be just a small fraction of the damages from the spill (the deaths, the damage of the oil to natural […]

Rena Steinzor | May 20, 2010

Sending Don Blankenship to Jail: A Legal Argument

Today, the Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will discuss “Investing in Mine Safety: Preventing Another Disaster” and hear testimony from the notorious Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch disaster where 29 miners lost their lives on April 5.  Workers safety and health advocates […]

Ben Somberg | May 20, 2010

Doremus in LAT: Administration’s Response to BP Oil Spill Needs to Go Beyond Splitting MMS

CPR Member Scholar Holly Doremus and fellow UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Eric Biber have penned an op-ed in today’s LA Times arguing that the Administration’s plan to split the Minerals Management Service in two in response to the BP oil spill disaster falls short of what’s needed. Write Doremus and Biber: The political […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | May 19, 2010

New CPR White Paper Critiques Supreme Court’s Heightened Pleading Standard for Getting Complaints into Federal Court

Cross-posted from ACSblog. The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) today released a white paper examining “plausibility pleading”-the Supreme Court’s heightened pleading standard that plaintiffs must satisfy in order to bring their claims in federal court. The paper, Plausibility Pleading: Barring the Courthouse Door to Deserving Claimants, comes after the Court’s decision one year ago this […]

Dan Rohlf | May 19, 2010

What if MMS Had Followed the Law When Considering the Deepwater Horizon Permit?

As millions of gallons of oil continue to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, the Washington Post and New York Times reported that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) – the agency within the U.S. Department of Interior that oversees offshore oil and gas leasing and development – mostly ignored some of the country’s most important […]

Matt Shudtz | May 17, 2010

Potentially Regulated Parties, White House Trying to Inject the Data Quality Act and Other Distractions Into EPA’s IRIS Assessment Process

In the year since EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced a new process (pdf) for updating chemical risk assessments in EPA’s IRIS database, agency scientists have succeeded in getting some stalled assessments moving through the system. Since the May 21, 2009 announcement, EPA staff have competed nine new and updated assessments. Two others are in the final stages […]

Alejandro Camacho | May 14, 2010

On Adaptation, Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill Largely Similar to ACES, But Drops Several Provisions and Provides Less Money

Though in many respects similar to provisions in the House-approved American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) bill and the prior Boxer-Kerry bill in the Senate, the adaptation program proposed in the newly released Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act substantially decreases funding for federal and state adaptation programs and eliminates provisions establishing a public health adaptation […]

Victor Flatt | May 12, 2010

Preemption Aside, New Climate Change Proposal Would Create Generally Similar Results as Prior Proposals (But Watch Out for Those Offsets)

While Kerry and Lieberman (and before two weeks ago, Graham) have tried to pitch the proposed new Senate climate and energy draft legislation as a “game-changer” the truth is that, aside from the stronger preemption language limiting the states, its effect is not terribly different from what has come before. Sure, there are sweeteners for the […]