A coalition of conservative and moderate Democrats has recommended deleting section 336 of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill because of “concern among industry about potential new liability for any emitter” under that provision (see the proposed amendments). Some polluters' objective, apparently, is to avoid liability for violating the law, and they recommend this deletion as a step toward accomplishing that goal.

But section 336 does not create any liability, new or old. Section 723 of the Waxman-Markey bill does that, quite appropriately, by establishing penalties for failure to meet targets or purchase sufficient allowances. And the liability in this other section does not apply to “any emitter,” but only to emitters that violate the law by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The whole notion that new obligations should create no new liability for violators, if accepted, would convert this bill from a mandatory cap and trade …

There are few areas where the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is more stark than that of the Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA, of course, requires agencies to provide copies of their records to any person upon request unless the record fits within one of nine specific exemptions. Among the most important of these are the exemption for classified information, inter-agency or intra-agency communications containing advice or recommendations, information compiled for law enforcement purposes, and private commercial information. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the FOIA is a disclosure statute; nothing in the FOIA requires an agency to withhold records even if they fall within an exemption, although it is possible that some other statute might.

In 1977, the Attorney General under President Jimmy Carter issued a memorandum to heads of departments and agencies announcing that henceforth the Justice Department would …

Two weeks ago, Representatives Waxman and Markey put forth a 648-page legislative draft for dealing with climate change. That draft had proposals for the use of offsets, some good and some not so good (see my earlier post). Moderate and conservative Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee have now put forward suggested changes (as reported by ClimateWire) that they say are necessary to make the proposed bill less onerous. In general, these provisions would more or less weaken the targets and enforcement mechanism in the proposed bill, and that is not a positive thing. We already know that climate change is serious and that the U.S. is going to have to take a leading role in addressing it, or we will never reach the international consensus necessary to address the problem. Yes, it will be hard, but instead of shirking our responsibility to ourselves and …

Never mind the unusual wave of intersex fish or the mutant frogs appearing in a waterway near you.

Earlier this week the Associated Press published the results of an investigation of pharmaceuticals in the nation’s waters.  The reporters found that U.S. drug companies have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways, including compounds such as: lithium, used to treat bipolar disorder; warfarin, a blood thinner also used as a rodenticide and pesticide; and tetracycline hydrochloride, an antibiotic.  This investigation follows an equally disquieting finding published last year that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals were found in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas.

Pharmaceuticals enter the nation’s waters primarily from health care facilities or consumers, who either excrete unabsorbed drugs or who adhere to the old (and debunked) advice to flush drugs down the toilet.  However, pharmaceuticals can also enter …

It must be worthwhile; at least, I keep doing it. Wednesday was the third time in the last eight months that I’ve testified before a House committee about the costs of inaction on climate change, a topic I study at the Stockholm Environment Institute-US Center, a research institute affiliated with Tufts University in Boston.

The Energy and Commerce Committee launched a week of hearings on the Waxman-Markey bill, the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” by one account, they have invited 67 witnesses to testify.

Wednesday was a staggeringly long day, beginning with Cabinet secretaries at 9:30 in the morning, then a panel of USCAP members (an alliance of major corporations and environmental groups, in support of climate legislation), then a panel that was half conservatives and skeptics (guess which party insisted on inviting them), and finally, starting just before 6:00 PM …

This item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.

Quite a bit, and most of the news is bad.

American Rivers has declared the Sacramento-San Joaquin the most endangered river in the United States.

The longfin smelt has been listed as threatened by the state, but it is not going to be federally listed, at least not yet.

Commercial salmon fishing off the California coast is one step closer to being formally closed for 2009.

And while late rains have increased water supplies, some farmers are still slated to get little or no water this summer.

* The American Rivers report listing the Sacramento-San Joaquin as the nation’s “most endangered” river has garnered substantial media attention. The report cites the need to overhaul both water and flood management systems. As Matt Weiser pointed out in the Sacramento Bee, that’s no surprise to locals, but there is …

On Sunday, John Boehner, the House Republican leader, explained his view of climate changeto George Stephanopoulos:

“George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, that it’s harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, uh, well, you know when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.”

My first thought was that this was completely idiotic, making a childish argument that even George W. Bush would have scorned. The fact that some CO2 is normal and even necessary proves nothing about what happens when concentrations go beyond the normal level: salt is essential in small doses but you’d die of thirst drinking sea water. Even apart from the demonstration of abysmal ignorance of climate science, there’s the fact that cows emit methane, not CO2, and that no …