ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

Central Valley Business Times-State fails to spend federal funds

California is sitting on nearly half a billion dollars in federal money for clean water projects and because it’s been so slow in spending it, the federal government may cut further funds.

via www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com

Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown

(Reuters) - Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Often focused on century-long trends, most climate models failed to predict that the temperature rise would slow, starting around 2000. Scientists are now intent on figuring out the causes and determining whether the respite will be brief or a more lasting phenomenon.

See story at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-climate-slowdown-idUSBRE93F0AJ20130416.

GABELLI V. SECURITIES EXCH. COMM'N.

  In this decision (No. 11-1274.) , issued February 27, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Commission was subject to the general statute of limitations (5 years) for bringing civil actions for alleged fraud violations of federal statutes.  The Court rejected the Commission's argument that there should be a delayed limitation where the Commission did not discover the fraud until after the normal limitations period has run.

While the fraud exception to limitations may be applicable to a private plaintiff, who is ordinarily not on the lookout for violations, the Commission as a government agency is specifically charged with discovering violations and thus no compelling fairness consideration exists which calls for giving the Commission extra time.  Or so concluded the Court.

The Gabelli decision on its facts applies only to the Commission.  However, the principle articulated in the case would seem to have equal applicability to other government entities such as the EPA.  One can, in any event, certainly expect environmental civil-case defendants from now on so to argue.

Store owners say plastic bag ban causes more shoplifting - seattlepi.com

When the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a ban on plastic bags and required businesses to charge a nickel for paper bags, city leaders believed it would be better all around.

"I think we've gotten to a place where it's really going to work for the environment, businesses and the community in general," Councilman Mike O'Brien said at the time.

But the bag ban is contributing to thousands of dollars in losses for at least one Seattle grocery store, and questions have been raised about the risk of food-borne illness from reusable bags that shoppers don't often wash.

via www.seattlepi.com

George Will: The manufactured crisis of sequester - The Washington Post

Remember when “a major cooling of the climate” was “widely considered inevitable” (New York Times, May 21, 1975) with “extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation” (Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976) which must “stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery” (International Wildlife, July 1975)? Remember reports that “the world’s climatologists are agreed” that we must “prepare for the next ice age” (Science Digest, February 1973)? Armadillos were leaving Nebraska, heading south, and heat-loving snails were scampering southward from European forests (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 27, 1974). Newsweek (April 28, 1975) said meteorologists were “almost unanimous” that cooling would “reduce agricultural productivity.”

via www.washingtonpost.com

Oh, the inaccuracy of prognostication...

U.S. Supreme Court hands L.A. County a victory in water lawsuit - latimes.com

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper — now Los Angeles Waterkeeper — sued the flood control district in 2008 alleging that it had violated its storm water permit# The lawsuit cited high pollution readings at monitoring stations in the county's rivers#

Last year, the U#S# 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the county was liable for pollution in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, and referred to the water flowing from the "concrete channels" into the natural part of the lower river as discharges of pollutants#

The Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit's opinion rested on a mistaken premise and reversed it# The water flowing from one "concrete" section of the river to another section cannot be deemed a "discharge" of pollutants, the court said# Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said "no pollutants are 'added' to a water body when water is merely transferred between different portions of that body."

via www.latimes.com

What is being spent and will be spent on litigation likely could have gone a long way to delaing with the water quality issues.

Global warming, the tool of the West - English pravda.ru

For years, the Elites of the West have cranked up the myth of Man Made Global Warming as a means first and foremost to control the lives and behaviors of their populations. Knowing full well that their produce in China and sell in the West model and its consiquent spiral downward in wages and thus standards of living, was unsustainable, the elites moved to use this new "science" to guilt trip and scare monger their populations into smaller and more conservatives forms of living. In other words, they coasted them into the poverty that the greed and treason of those said same elites was already creating in their native lands.

via english.pravda.ru

Who' a thunk it--writer in Russia criticizing a Leftist movement in the West; a famous French actor fleeing to Russia to avoid socialists in France. To anyone over 40, it's like things are upside down

Whoops—'Cash for Clunkers' Actually Hurt the Environment - Yahoo! News

Back in 2009, President Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program was supposed to be a boon for the environment and the economy. During a limited time, consumers could trade in an old gas-guzzling used car for up to $4,500 cash back towards the purchase of a fuel-efficient new car. It seemed like a win for everyone: the environment, the gasping auto industry and cash-strapped consumers.

Though almost a million people poured into car dealerships eager to exchange their old jalopies for something shiny and new, recent reports indicate the entire program may have actually hurt the environment far more than it helped.

According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

via news.yahoo.com

Gov’t Posts 61 New Federal Regulations, Including 500-Page Rule to Protect ‘Critical Habitat’ of Flycatcher | CNS News

The federal government posted 61 new regulations in the Federal Register on Friday, including the Department of Interior’s 500-page document outlining a new rule to protect the southwestern willow flycatcher’s “critical habitat” in six states.

That small insect-eating bird’s habitat covers 1,227 miles of streams and 208,973 acres in California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, on “federal, state, tribal and private lands.”

via cnsnews.com

As one commentator on the article noted: "500 pages - think about how much time had to go into that - then realize that somebody(ies) were paid for that time, probably pretty well - then tell me again how we have a "revenue" problem, and not a spending problem. Take your time - I'll wait...."

New regulations pull the plug on the 75-watt incandescent light - KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports#.UOMKb8WHSG0.email

New regulations pull the plug on the 75-watt incandescent light - KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports#.UOMKb8WHSG0.email