Regulation | Grist

tallying toxic threats

Congressional watchdog issues update on coal ash regulation efforts 0
Posted 2 days, 22 hours ago The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still does not know the exact number of coal ash dumps at the nation's power plants, but it's moving ahead with plans to regulate them.
It begins...

The big stories out of Tuesday’s Senate hearing on Kerry-Boxer 3
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago Tuesday's hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- the first of three days of hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill -- didn't contain any big surprises. As Keith Johnson notes, Senators generally played their appointed roles. There are four stories out of today that seem notable.
Cap-and-Trade versus the Alternatives for U.S. Climate Policy 1
Posted 1 month ago
The Right on parking

Free Market Parking From Canada 0
Posted 1 month ago
Everybody calm down

What the EPA announcement did (and did not) say 17
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago The EPA made an announcement today that lots of folks seem to be misinterpreting as "proposed regulations on power plants." That's not what they are.
firing chamber

Corporations call off the old green battle, but Chamber of Commerce soldiers on [UPDATED] 4
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago Still more trouble for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 97-year-old business advocacy group that has been courting controversy by questioning climate change and fighting a clean energy bill. Here are the companies that have quit the Chamber.
Lisa Murkowski’s bid to become a climate outlaw 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago Why is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) behaving like an outlaw?
Sen. Ben Cardin answers Grist’s questions on public transit and mountaintop removal mining 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who boasts close to a perfect score from the League of Conservation Voters, has become a key player on green issues in the Senate and an important voice against mountaintop-removal mining. He was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
Everything old is nuisance again

Connecticut v. AEP: Public nuisance ruling may boost chances of EPA CO2 regulations 1
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago The Second Circuit's recent decision in Connecticut v. AEP, in which a coalition of state attorneys general sued electric power producers to cap and then reduce their carbon emissions, allows the public nuisance case to proceed and gave the environmental plaintiffs virtually everything they wanted. A few aspects of the case stand out (aside from the obviously correct decision that a common-law tort suit is not a nonjusticiable political question). Most importantly, the Court's holding on "displacement," i.e. whether the Clean Air Act "displaces" the common law suit, actually makes EPA regulations somewhat more likely.
With bunnies!

Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask 10
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority and the obligation to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. At a stroke, the politics of climate change were changed. The choice was no longer between legislation or no legislation -- it was between legislation or regulation. One way or another, climate pollution would be controlled by a federal program.

Most experts agree that EPA regulations will be complex and somewhat unwieldy. Industry believes they will be onerous and expensive. Conventional wisdom, at least initially, was that fear of regulation would drive utilities and manufacturers to the bargaining table, changing the dynamic in Congress. EPA was supposed to play the role of the big, silent goon in the corner, tapping his baseball bat in his hand.

That theory isn't holding up too well.
Wonkeriffic!

An interview with Jason Burnett, who worked on EPA greenhouse gas regulations 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago

The following is an interview with Jason Burnett, who worked in the EPA under President GW Bush, wherein we discuss efforts by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Burnett quit the EPA in protest in June 2008, alleging interference from the Office of the Vice President.

The interview is meant as a supplement to the story, "Everything you always wanted to know about EPA greenhouse gas regulations, but were afraid to ask."
Newly confirmed regulatory czar needs to close OIRA’s backdoor for special interests 0
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago
After weeks of sustained attack from the right-wing on issues that are marginal to the job the President asked him to do, Cass Sunstein has emerged from the nomination process bloody but apparently unbowed.
Pee-Wee Longevity for US PV Panels

Regulatory standards save money 0
Posted 2 months ago
Contrary to all that we've been told by the economic pundits for decades, it is the ABSENCE of regulations and regulatory performance standards that costs consumers money, reports Business Week. This is a great case for the contribution of performance standards to overall economic efficiency.
CoC block

Chamber of Commerce keeps stepping on rakes 2
Posted 2 months ago

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce can't catch a break these days. It has pretended to agree with the goals of climate legislation while recommending changes in the means so drastic that they would gut the bill. But there's a problem: many, many business see enormous opportunities in the shift to clean energy. And many of those businesses happen to be members of the CoC.
Boucher: "Industry needs and wants a bill to pass"

Could Waxman and Markey have used the EPA threat more effectively? 28
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
Should Waxman and Markey have kicked off House climate bill negotiations with a stronger ask?

The bill they introduced was effectively the USCAP proposal, which already reflected years of negotiation and compromise. The idea was that the difficult work of negotiations had already been done -- enviros and business both on board! -- and it would be easy for conservative Dems (and a few Republicans) to sign off on it.

Of course that's not what has happened. Republicans are balking en masse. Conservative Dems have compromised the bill down further, and by all indications will further weaken it in the Senate. Could the bill have ended up in a stronger place if it had started in a stronger place?
The quietism of mainstream economics

Economist Greg Mankiw’s bottom line on climate policy: Government can’t do anything right 10
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Gregory Mankiw reveals yet again that mainstream economists don't have much to offer in the way of fighting climate change.
Cap-and-Trade: A Fly in the Ointment? 0
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Cap-and-trade systems, in which emission permits or allowances can be traded among potential polluters, continue today to be at the center of the action around market-based environmental policy instruments.
Policies can work in strange ways

Environmental regulation affects technological change 1
Posted 3 months ago
Whether the policy domain is global climate change or local hazardous waste, it’s exceptionally important to understand the interaction between public policies and technological change in order to assess the effects of laws and regulations on environmental performance.
Small changes at EPA could have big environmental impacts 1
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
While climate change legislation works its way toward 60 votes in the Senate, President Obama's EPA has been quietly working on some serious revisions to the guidelines it uses to conduct cost-benefit analysis. Tweaks they might make to the powerful but low-profile Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses could have major impacts on the environment and could spur greenhouse gas reductions if the Senate fails to take action.
OIRA we can believe in

Regulatory czar Sunstein’s first days 2
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Michael Livermore is right to suggest that environmentalists should be focused on Cass Sunstein’s first official day as regulatory czar for the Obama Administration. After months of delay over the Harvard professor’s eclectic and provocative writings, he will eventually take office if he can placate cattle ranchers concerned about his views on animal rights. Whatever their level of paranoia about Sunstein’s ability to grant animals standing to bring lawsuits, the likely character of his reign was more accurately predicted by the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which applauded Sunstein’s devotion to cost-benefit analysis, the major weapon of Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II to smother health, safety, and environmental protections.