TEXAS ENVIRONMENTAL LAW JOURNAL Volume 49 November 2019 Number 2
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In the News -- Jan. 29, 2007
District likely to ask for extension to meet standard BY STACEY SHEPARD, Californian staff writer Bakersfield Californian, Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Valley air regulators will likely ask for a delay in meeting a federal air standard today. That's when the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District will release its latest draft plan for cleaning up ozone, the main ingredient in smog. The current deadline for reducing ozone to levels mandated by the federal government is 2013. "We really have a problem here that no one else in the country has to face," said Brenda Turner, a spokeswoman for the district. Ozone is created when nitrogen oxides -- emitted from vehicle tailpipes, factories and construction equipment -- react with sunlight. Increased ozone is known to aggravate lung disorders. Ozone tends to become trapped here because of the valley's shape, stagnant air and hot temperatures. To make the 2013 deadline, the valley must cut emissions by nearly 70 percent. To do that, the last version of the cleanup plan, released by the district in October, estimated it would take 7.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to fund incentive programs. Even if money weren't an issue, the district doesn't believe the technology is available yet to make the needed reductions by 2013, Turner said. That's why more time seems to be the only alternative. Potentially, the deadline could be extended out by 10 years to 2023. Doing so would drop the price to fund incentive programs to about $2 billion or less, air district officials have said. The state Air Resources Board decides whether to grant an extension. -
Chimpanzees ( Pan Troglodytes Verus ) and Ful Ɓe Pastoralists
Predicting conflict over scarce resources: Chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) and Ful ɓe pastoralists by Brooke E. Massa Dr. Jennifer Swenson, Advisor May 2011 Masters project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Environmental Management degree in the Nicholas School of the Environment of Duke University 2011 MP Advisor's signature Cover photo: A pruned Khaya senegalensis tree stands, surrounded by its cut branches. Also known as African mahogany , the tree is prized not only for the fodder it provides, but also as a strong wood, often used to craft farming tools. Khaya senegalensis is considered a vulnerable species by the IUCN and is protected by several West African governments. 2 Abstract The western chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes verus ) is considered the most endangered subspecies of chimpanzee. The populations living at the furthest extent of its range, in southern Senegal – a country situated directly south of the Sahara Desert - are considered to be nearly extinct. These ‘savanna chimpanzees’ have adapted to living in an arid environment and are now facing more threats to their survival as climate change and deforestation have forced nomadic pastoralists further into their habitat in search of fodder and water. Combining field-collected data on both chimpanzee and pastoralist habitat use with GIS and remote sensing data, I spatially predicted areas of potential habitat conflict among chimpanzees and pastoralists. Using species distribution modeling, I found that large swaths of forested habitat in Bandafassi are predicted to be used by nomadic pastoralists. Their presence is expected in 86 percent of the land which is predicted to be used by chimpanzees. -
President Trump's Campaign to Erase the Social Cost of Carbon
Hidden Costs: President Trump’s Campaign to Erase the Social Cost of Carbon By Alison Cassady April 19, 2017 On March 28, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that attempts to upend critical components of President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan.1 The sweeping executive order directs his Cabinet officials to review and potentially rescind several climate-related rules, including the Clean Power Plan, or CPP—which set the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants—and two rules establishing methane pollution limits for oil and gas drilling facilities. The order also ends a morato- rium on coal leasing on public lands, among other policy changes.2 Media coverage focused primarily on these significant rule reversals. But the executive order also rescinds what the chief economist of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors called the “the most important figure you’ve never heard of”—the social cost of carbon, or SCC.3 The SCC reflects the marginal economic cost of adding one ton of carbon pollution to the atmosphere or, conversely, the economic benefit of removing one ton. President Obama established an interagency working group to develop the SCC so that federal agencies had a sound basis from which to quantify the benefits of policies to cut carbon pollution and justify those policies relative to their costs. The SCC is currently set at $39 per metric ton in 2007 dollars. Because the SCC plays a key role in validating federal climate policies, fossil fuel interests and their allies in conservative think tanks—many of whom served on the Trump admin- istration’s transition team—have been pushing to eliminate or lower the SCC value.4 The executive order rescinds the current SCC and provides agencies with direction that could result in a SCC value that approaches zero. -
Extensions of Remarks
April 26, 1990 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 8535 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS BENEFITS OF AUTOMATION First-class mail delivery performance was "The mail is not coming in here so we ELUDE POSTAL SERVICE at a five-year low last year, and complaints have to slow down," to avoid looking idle, about late mail rose last summer by 35 per said C. J. Roux, a postal clerk. "We don't cent, despite a sluggish 1 percent growth in want to work ourselves out of a job." HON. NEWT GINGRICH mall volume. The transfer infuriated some longtime OF GEORGIA Automation was to be the service's hope employees, who had thought that they IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES for a turnaround. But efforts to automate would be protected in desirable jobs because have been plagued by poor management and of their seniority. Thursday, April 26, 1990 planning, costly changes of direction, inter "They shuffled me away like an old piece Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, as we look at nal scandal and an inability to achieve the of furniture," said Alvin Coulon, a 27-year the Postal Service's proposals to raise rates paramount goal of moving the mall with veteran of the post office and one of those and cut services, I would encourage my col fewer people. transferred to the midnight shift in New Or With 822 new sorting machines like the leans. "No body knew nothing" about the leagues to read the attached article from the one in New Orleans installed across the Washington Post on the problems of innova change. "Nobody can do nothing about it," country in the last two years, the post of he said. -
Energy Environment
Energy and Environment FREE to PROSPER A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 117th Congress Energy and Environment REJECT THE GREEN NEW DEAL AND SIMILAR CENTRAL PLANNING SCHEMES The Green New Deal (GND), a nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in February 2019, calls for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” The GND envisions a massive expansion of federal spending and regulation to decarbonize the economy while guaranteeing health care, affordable housing, higher education, job training, family-sustaining wages, and retirement security for all. The costs required to achieve that end point are unsustainably large, vastly exceed benefits, and are not scientifically justified. Congress should: ◆ Reject the Green New Deal and similar central-planning schemes. The GND would impose unsustainable costs on the U.S. energy sector, inflate energy prices, depress gross domestic product (GDP) growth, and impoverish American households. A March 2019 study by American Enterprise Institute economist Benjamin Zycher estimates that “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” would cost $490.5 84 Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 117th Congress billion per year, or $3,845 per household. Factoring in the budget cost of the social spending programs required to sustain the pro-GND coalition in Congress and the deadweight loss of the associated tax hikes, Zycher estimates the total annual cost of the GND would be nearly $9 trillion. -
Steering the Ark Toward Eden: Design for Animal Well-Being
awf03.qxd 9/10/2003 1:50 PM Page 977 48. Terio KS, Munson L. Gastritis in cheetahs and relatedness to 49. Wielebnowski NC, Fletchall N, Carlstead K, et al. Non- adrenal function. In: Pukazhenthi B, Wildt D, Mellen J, eds. Felid invasive assessment of adrenal activity associated with husbandry taxon advisory group action plan. Report. Columbia, SC: American and behavioral factors in the North American clouded leopard pop- Zoo and Aquarium Association 2000;36. ulation. Zoo Biol 2002;21:77–98. Steering the ark toward Eden: design for animal well-being Jon Charles Coe, MLA, FASLA hatever one thinks of capturing wild animals for Larger, lushly landscaped displays modeled on Wpets, zoos, aquariums, or research, one may also natural habitats emerged in the United States in the think of their descendants as refugees of our own 1970s. My recollection of the period was that the same species’ global war for dominion over nature. This sentiment, which favored nature as the model in dis- paper will review the development of zoo design as we play design, favored a more hands-off policy in hus- seek to improve the well-being of these zoologic bandry. Gone were chimpanzee tea parties. Gone also refugees. were mechanical mice as enrichment stimuli. Naturalistic displays were thought by some to be suffi- Stage 1—Physical Survival ciently stimulating that additional stimulation was During the era of barred cages, there were few unnecessary.3 While this approach worked well, it did long-term survivors. Advances in diet and veterinary not always prevent problems, such as loss of occupa- care brought in the era of green-tile enclosures and, for tion. -
(EPA) in Its Entire 47-Year History
THE EPA UNDER SIEGE Trump’s Assault in History and Testimony Christopher Sellers Lindsey Dillon Jennifer Liss Ohayon Nick Shapiro Marianne Sullivan Chris Amoss Stephen Bocking Phil Brown Vanessa De la Rosa Jill Harrison Sara Johns Katherine Kulik Rebecca Lave Michelle Murphy Liza Piper Lauren Richter Sara Wylie EDGI June 2017 The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is an organization comprised of academics and non-prot employees that promotes open and accessible government data and information along with evidence-based policy making. The EPA Under Siege is the rst part of a multipart series o n the early days of the Trump administration. In this series, EDGI authors systematically investigate historical precedents for Trump’s attack on the EPA, consequences for toxic regulation and environmental justice, the inuence of the fossil fuel industry on the new administration, changes to the public presentation of climate change, and the new administration’s hostility to scientic research and evidence. For the rest of the series see: h ttps://100days.envirodatagov.org. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Executive Summary 3 II. Introduction 6 III. Precedent #1: The Early-Reagan Attack on the Environmental State 9 IV. What Ended the Gorsuch Era 18 V. Precedent #2: The Harper Administration in Canada 26 VI. Just Before Trump: An Agency Already in Decline? 33 VII. The Trump Administration Compared 38 VIII. Can the EPA Survive? 56 IX. Appendix: Interview Compendium 59 The EPA Under Siege 2 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Trump administration currently poses the greatest threat to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its entire 47-year history. -
Politics of Climate Change Belief
editorial Politics of climate change belief Donald Trump’s actions during the election and his first weeks as US president-elect send a strong message about his belief in climate change, or lack thereof. However, these actions may reflect polarization of climate change beliefs, not climate mitigation behaviour. Earlier this year, Donald Trump appointed Trump’s strategy. However, it seems more Myron Ebell, a known climate science likely that Clinton’s explicit references to denier, to oversee the US Environmental climate change were designed to reach Protection Agency transition (he later young voters2 who are already concerned chose another sceptic, Scott Pruitt, to run about the environmental impacts of climate the agency), and said that he would ‘cancel’ change, rather than those who need to be the Paris climate agreement. By the end persuaded by economic arguments. One of his second week as president-elect, it could even speculate that merely saying was announced that under Trump funds “climate change” highlighted the political from NASA’s Earth Science Division would divide between these latter voters and be redirected to deep space exploration Clinton, something that this issue has come projects, effectively eliminating a world- to symbolize. renowned centre for climate change There is no doubt value in determining research (see ref. 1 for a complete overview how to better educate the public about of Trump’s actions). This is notable given climate science. However, interventions that, as discussed in our November News based on the assumption that informing the Feature2, climate change was not central to public about environmental consequences the US presidential campaigns, and is not will inspire pro-environmental behaviour an issue that motivates electoral decisions. -
Laboratory Primate Newsletter
LABORATORY PRIMATE NEWSLETTER Vol. 42, No. 2 April 2003 JUDITH E. SCHRIER, EDITOR JAMES S. HARPER, GORDON J. HANKINSON AND LARRY HULSEBOS, ASSOCIATE EDITORS MORRIS L. POVAR, CONSULTING EDITOR ELVA MATHIESEN, ASSISTANT EDITOR ALLAN M. SCHRIER, FOUNDING EDITOR, 1962-1987 Published Quarterly by the Schrier Research Laboratory Psychology Department, Brown University Providence, Rhode Island ISSN 0023-6861 POLICY STATEMENT The Laboratory Primate Newsletter provides a central source of information about nonhuman primates and re- lated matters to scientists who use these animals in their research and those whose work supports such research. The Newsletter (1) provides information on care and breeding of nonhuman primates for laboratory research, (2) dis- seminates general information and news about the world of primate research (such as announcements of meetings, research projects, sources of information, nomenclature changes), (3) helps meet the special research needs of indi- vidual investigators by publishing requests for research material or for information related to specific research prob- lems, and (4) serves the cause of conservation of nonhuman primates by publishing information on that topic. As a rule, research articles or summaries accepted for the Newsletter have some practical implications or provide general information likely to be of interest to investigators in a variety of areas of primate research. However, special consid- eration will be given to articles containing data on primates not conveniently publishable elsewhere. General descrip- tions of current research projects on primates will also be welcome. The Newsletter appears quarterly and is intended primarily for persons doing research with nonhuman primates. Back issues may be purchased for $5.00 each. -
Save Document As Question1 and Add Your Last Name Or Affiliation
Additional Topics Submitter’s Name/Affiliation: William Prindle, Deputy Director, ACEEE If there is an additional topic related to the design of a mandatory market based program that you would like to address, please submit comments on this form. Why Energy Efficiency Requires Explicit Treatment in Climate Policy ACEEE wants to emphasize to the Committee the importance of engaging energy efficiency in any effective national climate policy. As the studies we have cited elsewhere in our responses to the Committee’s questions have shown, energy efficiency is one of the most cost-effective ways to address carbon emissions, and it can lead to a climate policy that produces net economic benefits, not penalties, for the economy. Yet energy efficiency will not happen automatically through a broad, upstream cap-and-trade program, because efficiency occurs downstream, at the end-use level. This means that emissions traders typically will not accept emission reductions credits from energy efficiency as valid, because reductions in energy use do not assure upstream emission reductions. This is particularly problematic in the power sector. Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that to be engaged effectively in climate policy, efficiency requires two key policy commitments: 1. A direct allocation, or auction, of allowances to entities charged with acquiring energy efficiency and other clean energy resources. 2. Parallel, complementary policies outside the cap regime, which are designed to achieve targeted energy savings in the most cost-effective way. These include energy efficiency resource standards (EERS), public benefits funds (PBF), and appliance standards The Modeling of Climate Policy Must Better Address Efficiency’s Benefits We suggest that the climate science argument is largely completed. -
Environmental Law in Warmer World
Adapting to Climate Change: Environmental Law in a Warmer World Matthew D. Zinn* Climate change presents a choice for publicpolicy mitigate our con- tribution to it or attempt to adapt to a changing world. In its most radical form, adaptation accepts as a given fundamentalchanges to our environ- ment caused by a warming climate and consequently demands similarly fundamental adaptationsin our ways of life. Those adaptationscould en- tail widespread and severe environmental impacts, complementing and enhancing the primaryenvironmental consequences of climate change. While environmental law has, if haltingly, moderated our environ- mental impacts in the recent past, this Article suggests that we should not assume that its successes will be repeated in a warmer world. Climate change threatens to exacerbate some of the problems of capacity that have limited environmental law, particularlythe inability to plan com- prehensively to minimize environmental effects. Climate change may also undermine the public support that has been integral to the creation and sustenance of environmentallaw by reorientinghuman relationshipswith the natural world. The environmental changes caused by a warming cli- mate may convert "the environment" from an endowment to be pro- tected to a hostile and unpredictable force to be controlled and from which we demandprotection. Although pessimistic about the prospects for environmentalprotec- tion in a world of unchecked climate change, the Article concludes with some optimism about our ability to avoid the worst of adaptation'scon- sequences through a policy of climate change mitigation. Copyright © 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. Environmental Law Fellow, California Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, 2006. -
Content and Programming Copyright 2004 MSNBC
Content and programming copyright 2004 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2004 FDCH e-Media (f/k/a/ Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MSNBC SHOW: SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY 22:00 May 25, 2004 Tuesday TRANSCRIPT: # 052500cb.471 SECTION: NEWS; INTERNATIONAL LENGTH: 7717 words HEADLINE: SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY For May 25, 2004 BYLINE: Dana Kennedy; Joe Scarborough GUESTS: Lloyd Grove; Ana Marie Cox; Chaunce Hayden; Drew Pinsky; Megan Stecher; Michelle Stecher; Myron Ebell; Jack Burkman; Eric Alterman; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [...] SCARBOROUGH: As Al Franken once said on "Saturday Night Live," the world comes to end. Details at 6:00. Well, that's what they say happens in "The Day After Tomorrow" movie. We're going to be talking to Robert Kennedy about that in just a second. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) SCARBOROUGH: Is Hollywood using its summer blockbusters to sway the next presidential election? Well, this Friday, "The Day After Tomorrow" opens. It's a $125 million movie that portrays a worldwide natural disaster that is brought on by global warning. MoveOn.org and Al Gore are even promoting what some are calling a presidential hit piece. Well, we've got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's the senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance. We also have Dana Kennedy, no relation, I don't think, NBC entertainment editor. And Myron Ebell, he's the director of global warning policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Dana Kennedy, let's go to you. First Michael Moore at Cannes and now this movie. Is Hollywood going to actually take votes from George Bush this fall with these movies? DANA KENNEDY, NBC ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: If I had to vote right now about these two movies—I haven't seen Michael Moore's documentary.