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When you say “small business,” most people probably imagine a mom-and-pop corner grocery.  Actually, the federal Small Business Administration’s concept of small goes well beyond that.  For instance, it includes a computer business that does up to $25 million per year in business. A convenience store can do $27 million and still be considered “small,” […]

The Senate’s confirmation of Gina McCarthy as head of the Environmental Protection Agency is a welcome development and a signal that Congress and the President are willing to get serious about the Agency’s role in protecting the health of all Americans and the affects of climate change on the environment. It won’t be easy. Lawmakers […]

One day in May, climate change got a lot more expensive. The price tag on emissions – the value of the damages done by one more ton of CO2 in the air – used to be a mere $25 or so, in today’s dollars, according to an anonymous government task force that met in secret […]

Last week brought big news in the water quality world.  On July 10, American Rivers, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and several other environmental groups filed “residual designation authority” petitions for stormwater discharges across EPA Regions 1 (New England), 3 (mid-Atlantic), and 9 (southwestern states and California).  That may sound like an obscure and technical […]

The 2013 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), as adopted by the Senate on May 13, S.601, would authorize $12 billion in federal spending on flood protection, dam and levee projects, and port improvements.  A new version of WRDA is passed every few years, and it is the primary vehicle for authorizing U.S. Army Corps of […]

Three years later, it was time for a new episode.  Back in 2010, Congress listened to some climate-denial rants, counted votes, and decided to do absolutely nothing about climate change; this year on Capitol Hill, the magic continues.   Also in 2010, the Obama administration released an estimate of “the social cost of carbon”` (SCC) […]

The impacts of climate change do not fall equally. That is obvious on a global level, where low-lying countries, like Bangladesh and small island states, face inundation, while poor equatorial countries face devastating heat and droughts. It is less obvious, but still true, in the United States, where poor and marginalized communities without sufficient financial and […]

Reposted from Environmental Law Prof Blog. A standard environmental history of American dams unfolds something like this: As a nation, we had a long love affair with dams.  And while they helped our nation grow into an industrial power, the environmental side-effects were immense: lost forests and farmland, drowned canyons, and, perhaps most importantly, devastated […]

Reposted from LegalPlanet. People on both sides of the political spectrum agree that the boundaries of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act are murky, to say the least. But efforts by EPA and the Corps of Engineers to clarify those boundaries have been tied up in the White House for more than a year, […]