From green governor to conservative candidate: The amazing transformation of...
“EPA New England applauds Governor Romney for his strong environmental leadership.” That quote from EPA’s regional director in 2004 shows the extent of Romney’s transformation in the past eight years....
View ArticleRedeeming FEMA: How the agency has been strengthened since Katrina
Today’s FEMA is a lot different from the organization that flubbed the Katrina response. There have been a number of positive changes, mostly during the past four years. First, as the Washington Post...
View ArticleWhat would Romney do? How reelection strategy could shape a Romney presidency
If Romney is elected president tomorrow, the sun will still rise in the east and sea will still be salty. Beyond that, predictions about a Romney presidency become more difficult, given his...
View ArticleClimate change may be more severe than previously expected
The Washington Post reports on a new study with grim implications about climate change. The study suggests that temperature increases by the end of the century will be at the upper end of predictions...
View ArticleWhy the GOP should embrace renewable energy and energy efficiency
There’s a lot of discussion these days about how the Republican Party should reposition itself in light of last week’s election results. Support for renewables and energy efficiency would make sense...
View ArticleTake a hike!
Walking is a sufficiently novel idea to be the subject of newspaper stories — as if our ancestors hadn’t been doing it since long before Homo sapiens evolved. Anyway, walking is the hot new thing in...
View ArticleHeating up the Eurozone
The European Union has issued a new report about climate impacts. The picture is mixed, with some good news (warmer winters in the Northern and Eastern Europe) but bad news in other respects. The...
View ArticleAttitudes on climate change, environmental science and clean energy
A new Associated Press poll reports a sharp increase in the number of people who believe that climate change is happening and will be a problem for the United States. The biggest change was among the...
View ArticleGreat expectations: A dozen views of Obama’s second term
As we approach inauguration day next month, I thought it would be interesting to pull together the advice that people are giving him about his second term. Here are some links if you’re interested in...
View ArticleLooking ahead to 2050
The New Year is both a time for nostalgia and for looking ahead, it seems appropriate to see what the world will look like at mid-century. The world will be facing considerable challenges then. The...
View ArticleThe NAACP and the politics of race and regulation
There’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on about the NAACP’s defense of over-sized soft-drinks. In an amicus brief challenging New York City’s new ban on the super-size, the NAACP (joined by the Hispanic...
View ArticleThe death of climate legislation revisited
Why did the push for climate legislation fail even though Democrats controlled Congress and the White House in 2008-2010 ? Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, addressed this issue in a...
View ArticleWhy is each sequel worse than the last?
Some movie franchises last way too long: Friday the 13th, Rocky, Nightmare on Elm Street. Each new film is worse than the last, and they’re all worse than the original, which wasn’t so great itself....
View ArticleIgnorance as political bliss: The Republican war on social science
Several recent posts on the Legal Planet blog have been about the political process, discussing issues like political polarization, congressional deadlock, and special interest groups. The discipline...
View ArticleWhy I’m boycotting Coke
Why Coke, you might wonder. Why not Pepsi? The answer is that diet coke is my soft drink of choice. It’s easy for me to boycott other soft drinks since I don’t drink them anyway. I like diet coke,...
View ArticleThe Roberts Court’s corporate romance
Forty years ago, before going on the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell wrote a call to arms for business interests, calling on them to counter “enemies of the free enterprise system” like Ralph Nader. Among...
View ArticleWrite your own news story
Just fill in the blanks, and you can save yourself the trouble of reading newspaper accounts about any new EPA action: New EPA Regulations Spark Controversy The Environmental Protection Agency today...
View ArticleEnvironmental haiku for summer
Just for amusement: Environmental haiku On a summer day. ____________ Across the hilltops, Slowly wheeling their white blades, Stand lines of windmills. ____________ A nap in the shade, Dreaming that...
View ArticleThe House GOP takes a courageous stand against food safety
It takes guts to oppose food safety. But that’s no problem for the House GOP. According to the New York Times, today’s House farm bill (July 11, 2013) wasn’t content to eliminate food stamps, it...
View ArticleThe strange world of the Small Business Administration
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,...
View Article
