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CPR Member Scholar Douglas Kysar has an opinion piece in the Guardian making the case for Carbon Upsets. Upsets, you ask? That is: Rather than award credits based on development that moves us toward a cleaner but still very dirty future, why not award credits to legal and political actions that have more dramatic impact? […]

CPR Member Scholar Frank Ackerman had an op-ed in the Des Moines Register the other day, “Atrazine ban would not ruin the Corn Belt.” The chemical in question is a weed-killer, and also a known endocrine disruptor. The Bush Administration’s EPA determined that atrazine does not cause negative effects to human health. The Obama Administration’s […]

CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies was recently on Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview talking about oil spills in the developing world, the power of big companies in small nations, and the broader picture of resource extraction and its effects on people. Said Bratspies: “any oil company that doesn’t cut the same corners that the worst player […]

The Minerals Managements Service’s coziness with an industry it was supposed to be monitoring has brought attention back to an all-too-pervasive problem: regulatory agencies becoming “captured” by the regulated industries. This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts is holding a hearing on “Protecting the Public Interest: Understanding the Threat […]

You may have read of a letter sent by 31 Representatives to the EPA today to complain about coal ash regulation. I wasn’t planning on dignifying it with a response, but sometimes something just calls out for a little highlighting. Like when the members write: “States have been effectively regulating CCRs” That’s actually a case […]

The last time the WSJ attempted a big scoop on the Toyota story (attempting to discredit the Prius driver case in California), the article did not hold up well. This week’s story (“Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers”) has caught attention, and a response from NHTSA: the agency has “several more months of work […]

A report released in Washington this morning highlights “The Hidden Struggles of Migrant Worker Women In The Maryland Crab Industry.” The paper, by Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. and the International Human Right Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, is focused mostly on immigration policy issues (a little outside our […]

Sorry to link to the Daily Show again, but I swear it’s relevant. On last night’s show, Lewis Black covered recent food safety and consumer product safety news. “But knowingly selling us broken cars, poisoned medicines — if I didn’t know any better, I’d think these companies were just in for the money!”

The second segment of last night’s Daily Show interview with David Axelrod featured a couple minutes on the broken regulatory system and questions of trust in government competence in the wake of the BP disaster. Axelrod: “I think we’ve tested the proposition of what no regulation means, and what you get is .. the leak, […]