January 22, 2021
With its day-one start to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, the incoming administration will also need to undo scores of Trump environmental regulatory rule-makings and rollbacks. Some of those steps could involve painstaking years-long processes of developing and proposing new rules and then submitting them for public comment prior to adopting final rules. Court challenges also would likely delay those actions in a number of cases.
But a major workaround involves the Congressional Review Act (CRA), reviewed in depth in this recent Yale Climate Connections post by Jan Ellen Spiegel.
One key CRA target for incoming Democrats will be the so-called ‘transparency rule’ – AKA “secret science” rule – finalized January 5, 15 days before the Biden/Harris inauguration. The concept, first proposed by the tobacco industry in the 1990s, requires that EPA give more weight to studies for which data are fully public than to those including confidential data. M
Yves here. This is the sort of post I very much like, since it made me smarter about a government procedure that Trump used actively, the 1996 Congressional Review Act. What surprised me was that Trump was the first President to use it aggressively, and that the Act is vague enough on key points as to be seen as legally grey. Yet Trump’s moves were never challenged in court! So much for Team Dem’s brand commitment to fighting.
By Jan Ellen Spiegel. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections
The obstacles the Trump administration has placed on environmental rulemaking and, by extension, on stemming climate change have been well-documented by organizations from mainstream media outlets to multiple academic institutions.
Biden administration progress on climate change will have to overcome roadblocks left by the Trump administration and some arcane Senate rules. But hope springs eternal.
By Dana Nuccitelli | Wednesday, January 20, 2021
President Joseph R.Biden at his January 20, 2021 inauguration, with wife Dr. Jill Biden looking on.
Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died a quiet death in the Senate after failing to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster threat.
Yves here. In parts of the West, water rights have long been hotly contested. Potable water is the natural resource that is projected to come into serious shortage first. That makes management of resources like the Colorado River of critical importance, yet the bodies responsible for its stewardship are late to come to grips with the impact of perma-droughts
By Jan Ellen Spiegel. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections
Colorado is no stranger to drought. The current one is closing in on 20 years, and a rainy or snowy season here and there won’t change the trajectory.
This is what climate change has brought.