Seven Bright Spots of 2018
A version of this post was originally published on Legal Planet.
Yes, it was a grim year in many ways. But there actually were some bright spots. Here are just the high points.
- Scott Pruitt. Pruitt resigned under fire. While his successor may be more successful in some ways, the fact remains that Pruitt was a disgrace. We're better off without him. Trump was apparently unfazed by his incompetence and aversion to hard work. But the succession of scandals and investigations – about personal travel at government expense, extravagance, the top-secret phone booth in his office, and so on and so on – eventually got to be too much of a distraction that threatened to undermine Trump's own monopoly on the spotlight.
- Ryan Zinke. Yet another bad apple who was forced out. His acting replacement is equally wrong-headed and more competent but has multiple conflicts of interest that require him to recuse himself from many disputes. Which is probably a good thing.
- Judicial rulings. The Trump administration continued to have a terrible record in court on environmental issues. According to Brookings, the administration's record is now one in eighteen. Apart from losing litigation over its efforts to postpone Obama-era rules without obeying …
As I documented in my most recent post, 2018 was an active year for regulatory policy, bringing several notable controversies, milestones, and developments. For those who follow this area, 2019 promises to be just as lively and momentous. Indeed, it appears that the dynamics that spurred much of the regulatory policy-related action in 2018 – namely, the high priority that the Trump administration has placed on corrupting our system of regulatory safeguards, and the accompanying political polarization around the issue more generally – will continue and perhaps even intensify in the new year. Here are 10 of the biggest stories I’m looking to following in 2019, in no particular order:
- What will happen to longstanding doctrines of judicial deference to agencies? Seemingly out of nowhere in the last few years, conservative opponents of regulatory safeguards set their sights on the once relatively uncontroversial deference doctrines applicable to judicial …
A version of this post was originally published on Legal Planet.
What are the key things to watch for in 2019 in the environmental area?
Regulations.
- According to the Trump administration’s schedule, three big rules should be issued in March: repeal of the Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS), repeal and replacement of the Clean Power Plan, and the freeze on fuel efficiency standards. This seems very ambitious to me, especially for the last two where there are major technical issues to be resolved. EPA has already lost a couple of weeks due to the shutdown, and there’s every likelihood that will continue. But even with slippage, the rules are likely to come out sometime next year. There will also be movement on a bunch of other rules, such as the effort to loosen restrictions on methane emissions.
- In addition, just prior to shutting …
As we prepare to tie a bow on 2018, it’s worth looking back at the various op-eds CPR’s Member Scholars and staff penned over the course of the year. You can find and read every single one of them on our op-ed page. But here are some highlights for quick(er) perusal:
- In February, CPR’s Founding President, Tom McGarity had a piece in The American Prospect, reviewing the damage done by the GOP congressional majority by means of the Congressional Review Act.
- Lisa Heinzerling had a March piece in The Washington Post pointing out that, on at least one front, the President is losing his war on sensible safeguards, because, as it turns out, the courts sometimes insist that regulatory agencies follow the Administrative Procedure Act, even when the President is eager to ignore it.
- In June, CPR President Rob Verchick was in the …
As 2018 ends and we take stock of the developments in workers’ rights over the first half of the Trump administration, there is little forward progress to report. This administration, acting with minimal to no congressional oversight, has consistently neglected to protect America’s workers, instead rolling back and delaying numerous Obama-era regulations and safeguards, ignoring emerging hazards from climate change and new technologies, and restricting traditional inspection and enforcement in favor of self-reporting and compliance assistance.
Instead of focusing on the past and the negative, let’s look forward to 2019. If it wants to, the Trump administration has an opportunity to change course next year, and work with the 116th Congress to prioritize America’s workers. In the likely event President Trump and the Republican majority of the Senate continue on the same path, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives can …
While regulatory policy developments might not lead evening news broadcasts or dominate newspaper headlines, they can have an enormous impact on our day-to-day lives. Regulatory policy has been a particular hotbed of activity during the Trump administration, which swept into office determined to undermine or corrupt the institutions responsible for keeping Americans and their environment secure against unacceptable risks of harm. So, it is no surprise that 2018 was another busy year in regulatory policy. Here are 10 of the biggest stories I’ve followed, in no particular order:
- First full year of the Executive Order 13771 “regulatory budget.” The single most significant step that the Trump administration has taken on regulatory policy was its issuance of Executive Order 13771, which required executive branch agencies to eliminate at least two existing regulatory actions for each new one they issued. It further required agencies to ensure that the …
This post was co-authored by Kevin Morris, a J.D. candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law. He serves as a research assistant for Maxine Burkett. This post was originally published by the Wilson Center's New Security Beat.
In Alaska's arctic communities, Inuit contemplating the need to relocate have reported that the loss of sea ice would make them feel like they are lost or going crazy. Zika and other vector-borne diseases have been a concern primarily for people in the southeastern United States. Recent research on the long-range internal migration of people from the coasts to the interior suggests a broader national concern regarding "climate augmentation" of disease. These are just two examples of the many public health effects we can expect as climate change forces people to uproot themselves.
Linking Climate Change, Migration, and Health
In the future …
Not long after their party regained control of the lower chamber in the midterm elections, House Democratic leaders unveiled their signature legislative action for the next Congress – a package of reform measures aimed at tackling some of the worst ethics abuses involving the Trump administration's top officials and members of Congress. Symbolically assigned the designation of H.R. 1 to underscore its status as the top legislative priority, the bill would do more than just restore the integrity of our key democratic institutions; it could also serve as a crucial first step toward strengthening our system of regulatory safeguards.
Though the actual language of H.R. 1 has not been released, the bill is expected to consist of three sections. First, it would introduce a number of ethics reforms aimed at high-ranking executive branch officials and members of Congress, including requiring presidential candidates to disclose their taxes …
It's that point in the year when we take a step back and reflect on the past 12 months. This was a big year for those concerned about restoring the Chesapeake Bay, with plenty of feel-good stories about various species and ecosystems rebounding more quickly than expected. There were also more than a few headlines about record-setting rainfalls washing trash down the rivers, over dams, and coating the Bay's shores. But I am going to look beneath the headlines at what is driving – or hindering – our progress in restoring the Bay and where things stand now that we're just past the halfway mark in the current Bay cleanup framework. So, in no particular order, here are the top 10 stories and issues I've been watching this year, which I'll expand upon in a series of posts over the next few weeks.
10) States Began to Craft Their …
Originally published on Environmental Law Prof Blog.
This morning, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA released a proposed new rule that would change the agencies' shared definition of "waters of the United States." That phrase defines the geographic scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.
The proposed rule would narrow the scope of federal jurisdiction, primarily in two ways. First, it would eliminate jurisdiction for "ephemeral" streams – that is, streams where water flows only during and shortly after precipitation events. Second, it would eliminate jurisdiction for wetlands that lack an intermittent or permanent surface connection to navigable-in-fact waterways and that are not directly adjacent to those waterways. In practice, this will mean removing protections for wetlands that are close to surface waterways and are connected to those surface waterways through groundwater flows.
In the rule itself, and in the rhetoric surrounding …
