While the White House, Congress and the oil industry fight over the controversial deepwater drilling moratorium, a federal judge quietly made a significant decision on the next frontier of offshore oil and gas exploration: the Arctic seas. Yesterday U.S. District judge Ralph Beistline blocked energy companies from developing oil and gas …
Regulation
Cracking Down on Toxic Makeup
Let’s put this out there first: I do not know much about cosmetics. I have deodorant and shaving cream and—because I burn in the sun faster than Robert Pattinson in Twilight—lots and lots of sunblock. The average American uses 10 personal care products a day, and I am sub-average.
But I do know that government regulation of …
European Coal Mines Lose Subsidies
It has long been said of renewable energy sources that they cannot survive without subsides. But the dirty secret of fossil fuels is that they, too, receive tax payer support—even in environmentally friendly Europe.
On Wednesday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, announced that state subsidies for …
Report: Global Illegal Logging on Downswing
From the department of (mostly) good news, a major study released today by London-based NGO Chatham House offers one of those rare beasts in the jungle of environmental reports: improvement.
The report finds that the collective efforts of government, civil society and the private sector in 12 countries have yielded big …
Is the Deepwater Drilling Moratorium Worse Than the Oil Spill?
I’ve already asked whether President Obama’s deepwater drilling moratorium is a smart policy, given the fact that it won’t do much unless we attack oil demand at the source. But I still thought that a temporary timeout for certain sorts of deepwater drilling made sense. The Deepwater Horizon accident proved not just that well blowouts …
Obama Issues New Offshore Drilling Moratorium
Frustrated twice by the federal courts—which had overturned his original temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling—President Obama Monday evening decided to do what most of us have probably wanted to do when denied by someone in a position of authority: he went ahead anyway. (Sometimes it’s good to be President.) Interior Secretary …
Is a Deepwater Drilling Moratorium Smart?
Government lawyers will be in a federal appeals court in New Orleans today, fighting to reinstate a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. The temporary ban—put in place by President Obama after the BP spill to give a presidential commission time to reevaluate the safety of deepwater drilling—was overturned last month by a …
Cap and Trade Isn’t That Costly
Once you get past those who insist climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people and engage with global warming critics who actually have use of their rational faculties, the main point of debate tends to be the cost of trying to reduce carbon emissions. The conservative writer Jim Manzi over at the New …
The Clean Air Act Gets Cleanerish
We’re all feeling the heat today on the East Coast. Some of us are even writing about it. But this week will also be marred by unusually bad air quality in the Eastern U.S.—several cities hit Code Orange or Code Red for air quality, due to dangerously high levels of ozone and other pollutants. (Check out the nationwide levels here.) In …
BP’s Safety Problems Began Long Before the Oil Spill
As the oil spill has worsened, reporters have dug into BP’s company policies, demonstrating that the energy company often put profits well before safety throughout many parts of its operations. Exhibit A in that case was always a 2005 fire in BP’s creaking Texas City refinery, which killed 15 people—four more than died in the Deepwater …