The Obama Administration’s newly released science policy memo is an important and largely positive development in the effort to protect science and scientists from politics. In particular, the policy takes aim at many of the abuses of science and scientists that defined the Bush era. It’s particularly encouraging, for example, that the policy calls on political appointees to take a hands-off approach to science.

That said, in several areas, the policy could have, and should have, gone farther. The tension between science and politics predates the Bush Administration, and systemic reforms are long overdue. The Obama Administration science policy memo was an opportunity to address these issues, but it focused instead on fixing problems primarily from the Bush Administration.

The memo, issued by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), does not address the permissive approach many agencies …

A federal appeals court's decision on Friday refusing to block implementation of EPA’s first limits on carbon pollution from cars, power plants, and factories is good news for inhabitants of planet Earth. A coalition of industry groups, right wing think tanks, and the state of Texas had asked the court to grant a stay blocking EPA’s rules from going into effect while their litigation challenging those rules goes forward.  But a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (including two very conservative republican appointees) wisely rejected that request.

All this started back in 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Bush EPA’s feckless efforts to avoid regulating greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Nearly four years later, Obama’s EPA has finally taken the first baby steps toward fulfilling its obligations under the Clean …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

On Friday the D.C. Circuit rejected efforts to stay EPA’s pending greenhouse gas regulations until the court decides the merits of the appeals.  It could well take a year or more for the merits to be decided, so in the meantime EPA can move forward.

The court order does not indicate any view on the merits of the cases, but the court clearly rejected the doomsday scenario painted by industry and the state of Texas:

Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending court review. See Washington Metro. Area Transit Comm’n v. Holiday Tours, Inc., 559 F.2d 841, 843 (D.C. Cir. 1977); D.C. Circuit Handbook of Practice and Internal Procedures 32 (2010). Specifically, with regard to each of the challenged rules, petitioners have not shown that the harms they allege are “certain,” rather …

Apparently feeling their oats after the Republicans captured control of the U.S. House in November’s elections, several GOP representatives from western states are already galloping out of the gates to attempt to roll back species protections in the West. They’ve initially set their sights on gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains, which were returned to the Endangered Species Act’s protected list by a court decision in August.

A leader of the anti-wolf posse is Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, who introduced bills last week to delist wolves in Utah – and everywhere else for good measure. Riding flank for Bishop is Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who declared that "returning wolf management to the states isn't a partisan issue that pits Republicans against Democrats. It's about states' rights." However, so far no House Democrats have joined the group of Republican gunslingers in …

The environmental blogosphere is already abuzz over the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in AEP v. Connecticut. The case is of critical importance in determining whether the courts have a role to play in adjudicating climate change. Few believe that the courts are a good venue for developing climate policy. But for the foreseeable future, the question is whether the traditional common law can fill in for Congress’ failure to take more comprehensive action.

In AEP, Connecticut, along with several other states and public interest organizations, brought a public nuisance action against the five largest U.S. electric utility companies. The plaintiffs sought injunctive relief in the form of emissions limits on the utilities’ facilities. In 2005, the district court held that applying public nuisance law to the problem of climate change presented a nonjusticiable political question, and dismissed the case. In 2009, the Second Circuit …

The Supreme Court this morning granted certiorari in the case of American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, a common law nuisance suit seeking an order compelling large electric utility companies to reduce their contributions to global climate change. At issue will be a variety of doctrines – such as standing and political question – that nominally originate from constitutional limitations on the role of the judicial branch, but that judges have, over the years, expanded well beyond the text and structure of the Constitution. 

AEP is the first climate change nuisance suit to reach the Supreme Court, but it is only one of several that have been initially dismissed by district court judges who seem all too eager to avoid these controversial and boundary-straining suits. 

The problems with these dismissals are two-fold. First, to the extent that judges are worried about stretching tort law to reach the mother of …

With the 40^th anniversary of EPA last week, there's been some useful writing on the big picture of the history. I wanted to highlight:

• Steve Cochran at EDF has the first in a series on the Clean Air Act and its record of protecting us from pollutants. Post one: the acid rain program.
• Ruth Greenspan Bell at World Resources Institute takes us through some of the history to show that for EPA regulations, cost predictions are overstated.
• Lisa Jackson outlined her view of the record of EPA accomplishments in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. EPA also put together a series of photos to remind folks of what it was like in the old days.

Important reminders, I think.

Maryland submitted its final Phase I Watershed Implementation Plan for Chesapeake Bay restoration this afternoon.

It's the strongest blueprint of any of the states, and if implemented and funded sufficiently would allow Maryland to achieve its needed share of pollutant reductions. Maryland has pledged to implement, by 2017, the pollutant controls necessary to achieve 70% of its needed reductions, and to an accelerated timeline by implementing all necessary pollutant controls by 2020.

The plan has the most promise of any of the state plans of meeting its targets because it identifies specific strategies for reducing pollution, provides detailed cost estimates for implementing the plan, and provides strategies for pursuing the necessary funding. Now that Maryland has identified how much funding is needed for its pollution reduction strategies, the challenge will be acquiring that funding and maintaining the political will to implement the plan.

Maryland's plan …