Environmental Law

In The News (September 24)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• Congressional Democrats, bowing to political pressure, have agreed to let the ban on offshore oil drilling expire, a decision that could allow exploration just three miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, reports the Washington Post.
• Hot solar panels, but not in a good way: the popularity of residential solar installations has led to a rash of thefts of the panels, according to The New York Times.
• The continuing debate over solar energy projects in the desert, and the federal government's effort to assess environmental impacts, is recounted by The New York Times. Of course, this is a topic Climate Law Update has also covered, and more than once. 
• A prominent policy adviser in China says that nation should bind itself to international goals to slash greenhouse gases, in a "striking break with Beijing's official stance," according to this dispatch from Reuters.
• Former Vice President Al Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has urged young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants that don't have the ability to store carbon, from another Reuters report.
• The results of the nation's first auction of greenhouse gas emission allowances for power plants will be made available on Monday, according to an announcement from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
• European Union lawmakers will vote next month on steps to lower carbon penalties for industry and funnel billions of euros annually into climate change-fighting technologies, according to a European Parliament document cited by Reuters.
• The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was not truthful with Congress about rejecting a request from California for permission to regulate global warming emissions from motor vehicles, says Sen. Barbara Boxer, according to Reuters.  

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on September 24, 2008 (boomark / email).