Archive for the ‘Law and Regulatory Issues’ Category

On the Difference Between Lawyers and Catfish

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

By David L. Brown

Oops, today we learn that the stimulus bill that just passed the House of Representatives won’t allow stimulus money to be spent on imported steel. That’s like slamming the door on world trade, which is going to create a huge backlash from trading partners and lose American jobs through loss of exports. Oh, how wise the gurus in Washington are! (Not).

Here is an excerpt from a news item tonight from FoxNews.com:

U.S. businesses and trading partners are resisting a new “Buy American” provision in the $819 billion economic stimulus package making its way through Congress.

The provision, included in the House bill that passed on Wednesday, generally prohibits the purchase of foreign iron and steel for any stimulus-funded infrastructure project.

The goal is to boost the U.S. iron and steel industries, which have been pummeled by the current recession. Shipments in the steel industry, for example, fell 40 percent last year.

Yet John Murphy, vice president of international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said 50 million Americans whose jobs depend on exports would pay the price.

Think this could be a problem? Umm, no — the word “problem” isn’t anywhere near a bad enough word to describe what this will be. And then there is the fact that our steel industry is almost completely moribund and has been for decades. Pittsburgh’s fabled mills have long been shuttered and turning into rust buckets. The remaining mills are generally unable to compete with foreign producer.

Is this what we want to do — attempt to rebuild out-dated industries whose time has come and gone? Revisit the Industrial Revolution? We need to concentrate on developing alternative energy, a cleaner environment, a sustainable economy, not dump billions into developing new steel mills. And even if we should want to do so in order to stimulate the economy, it would take years to ramp up efficient iron and steel production. That’s not likely to contribute to our immediate economic problems until well after the Obama administration is over, if ever (although it is a fact that the economic crisis may go on forever in the post-Peak Oil world). If we continue to sink into a depression without end, what stimulus will it take to create a new steel industry to replace the cheap foreign imports we now enjoy? And, what kind of sense would it make to do so?

Meanwhile, American steel users “benefiting” from the stimulus (which by the time Congress is done will be just about everybody) will be struggling with severe shortages, which means higher prices, inability to produce end products, and ultimately a domino effect sweeping through every steel-using manufacturer down through retailers and to consumers. Meanwhile, steel exporting nations are going to boycott American goods like there’s no tomorrow. They’ll use the cheap and abundant steel to produce more consumer goods at lower prices to sell to each other and everyone except America.

But how important could this be. From what nations do we buy our steel? Glad you asked: Oh, probably nothing all that important: China, India, Mexico, Korea, Turkey, the European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, places like that. Heck, there’s no problem with ticking off those countries and causing them to slam the door on our exports is there? Nah! We’ll still be able to export lots of stuff to, er, ah, Antarctica, that’s it. Yeah, Power to the Penguins! And we’ll have no worries because we won’t be able to produce many export items anyway due to shortages and the high prices for domestic iron and steel. So we’ll be able to easily meet and even exceed demand (those Penguins will require some excellent salesmanship to get them to buy those refrigerators, freezers, ice makers and other Antarctica-appropriate export trade items).
Don’t these people in Washington have any common sense about how economics works? Well, apparently not. They are, after all, mostly lawyers. There are many good, honest, hard-working lawyers (I have been privileged to know and work with several of them) but for the most part they are generally not the greatest paragons of wisdom and ethical purity.

Hey, let’s enjoy a lawyer joke to lighten things up in the face of the impending economic doom that is being hatched out in Washington:

Riddle: “What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?” Answer: “One is a scum-sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.”

That was fun. Let’s have another: “What’s the difference between a dead lawyer on the highway and a dead rattlesnake on the highway?” Answer: “There are skid marks in front of the snake.”

And finally, a faux factoid: “99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.” Heh.

Lawyers should NEVER be entrusted with creating and administering the law. That should be the job of patriotic American citizens in possession of a firm grounding in science, philosophy, history and economics, none of which seem to appear on Law School course lists. Instead we get a pack of critters who if they weren’t in Congress would be suing people and companies for every imaginable sin and pocketing as much as half or more of anything collected.

And let’s face it, the kinds of lawyers I’m describing are exactly the ones that would tend to go into politics, being greedy egomaniacal morons. And once in office, they surround themselves with, what else? More lawyers. One out of every twelve residents of the District of Columbia is a lawyer, 42,000 of them in all, more per square mile than many other nations have as a total. Washington is like a vast hive of lawyers, something out of a bad horror film such as Night of the Living Dead or a drug-enhanced nightmare.

So, yeah, as long as we’re going to create a new Greater Depression, let’s start out big by sticking it in the eye of our trading partners to create a huge trade war over steel, something we can barely produce any more anyway. That’s smart all right. Bring those foreigners in line right quick, won’t it? Smoot and Hawley will be smiling down from Heaven, er, rather, smiling up from down there below, at the ongoing reenactment of their famous bill that plunged America into the Great Depression by placing huge tariff barriers on imported goods in 1930.

That sure fixed things up, didn’t it? If it hadn’t been for World War II we’d still be in the Depression if Smoot, Hawley and their successors had their way. How soon they forget the past, those who do not read history or ever learn how to think rationally or master common sense. And how fast the nation can fall if it continues down the road it has now set foot upon.

Posted in Economics, Law and Regulatory Issues, Politics, Satire, Irony, and Humor | Comments Off

Congress Encounters the Energy Tar Baby

Monday, August 13th, 2007

By David L. Brown

Our nation, and indeed all the nations of the entire world, are facing a serious energy crisis. Because of the danger of climate change we cannot continue to burn increasing amounts of fossil fuels. Clean alternatives must be found. Even more threatening to our economy is the fact that the Earth may be nearing or even have passed the so-called Hubbert Peak for petroleum recovery, after which oil production cannot be sustained except through heroic and increasingly expensive efforts.

Naturally our representatives in Washington are eager to “solve” these energy problems, and the only way they know how to approach anything is by passing new laws. Lots of new laws. (Why do they so seldom address problems by repealing existing laws that may have created the problems in the first place?)

Unfortunately, there is apparently no clear vision in the halls of Congress about what to do about energy — at least no vision that extends as far as from one end of the Capitol Building to the other. Perhaps it is because there are too many special interests involved (Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Auto to name just three). Remembering the situation in which B’rer Fox found himself when engaging in fisticuffs with the Tar Baby, perhaps we should have some sympathy for our befuddled legislators as they struggle to “solve” our nation’s looming energy crisis.

To their credit, both houses have now passed versions of a new energy bill, the Senate in June and the House just last week. But there is one very big problem: The two bills have about as much in common as Bart and Lisa Simpson. The conference committee charged with attempting to lash up a compromise between these disparate bills will face a daunting and perhaps impossible task.

Here, thanks to information included in a report posted on the Energy Legal Blog, are some examples of just how different the two bills are:

  • The House bill passed August 4 by a 241 to 172 vote requires that by 2020 public utilities produce at least 15 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar. The Senate version has no such provision.
  • The House bill would cut $16 billion from tax breaks for oil and gas companies and would apply the savings to incentives for energy efficiency. The Senate version does not address this.
  • The Senate bill calls for an increase to 35 mpg in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) automobile efficiency standards by 2020 for a range of vehicles, including cars, SUVs and light trucks. The House bill includes no provisions concerning CAFE standards.
  • The Senate bill (quite unwisely in my opinion) would mandate an increase in the use of ethanol to seven times the present level by 2022, and require that 85 percent of cars manufactured by 2015 be capable of running on E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The House, perhaps in its great wisdom although more likely due to mere oversight, sets no such targets.
  • The Senate version provides financial support for programs to produce liquid fuels from coal, another issue the House bill does not address.
  • The Senate bill also includes a provision making it unlawful to charge an “unconscionably excessive price” for oil products, including gasoline. The House bill does not plan to criminalize inflation.

One of two things can happen if the conference committee succeeds in crafting a compromise bill: Either the best features of both bills can be included in the final draft, or those features can be bargained away to yield a watered-down version. In the worst case the entire process could get bogged down and have to be started all over again in the next session of Congress. Based on recent experience, the gloomier alternatives are probably the most likely.

(more…)

Posted in Energy Technology, Law and Regulatory Issues, Politics | 1 Comment »

Supreme Court Rules EPA Can Regulate GHG

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

By David L. Brown

The Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles, and ordered the EPA to reconsider its policies on that issue. The majority opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens says that greenhouse gases (GHG) are pollutants and should be covered by the landmark Clean Air Act.

The lawsuit was filed by a consortium of 12 states and 13 environmental groups that were fed up with the Bush administration’s foot-dragging on climate change.

The court was asked to consider three questions: 1) Can states sue the EPA on its decision not to regulate CO2 emissions from automobiles; 2) Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority it needs to act; and 3) Does EPA have the right to refuse to regulate those emissions. The court ruled “yes” on the first two questions.
On the third question, according to the Associated Press report this morning:

…it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a “laundry list” of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.

The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,” Stevens said. He was joined by his liberal colleagues, Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, and the court’s swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The court’s decision is expected to give California a clearer path to gaining EPA approval of its program to limit emissions of GHG from automobiles. The state has taken a leading role in anti-pollution measures as part of its program to eliminate smog. Now it is seeking to limit GHG emissions as well.

The Supreme Court decision comes as climate change moves toward the front burner of political issues, and is welcome news for environmentalists and others who are concerned that the continued release of GHG into the atmosphere could lead to climate change events that could be catastrophic. The Bush administration has taken a wait-and-see attitude toward global warming, and in some respects has actually suppressed information about the issue. For example there have been attempts to muzzle NASA’s top climatologist James Hansen, who is a leading voice for action against potential global warming.

The bad news about the environment has been coming faster and faster. In recent months the National Research Council has concluded that global warming is real and human activity is a major cause. The Stern Report in England reached a similar conclusion, and the interim report from the International Panel on Climate Change, while muting the message, has also agreed. Al Gore’s many public appearances and his Oscar-winning documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” have also had a significant impact on bringing these issues to the forefront.

Meanwhile, nay-sayers who have spoken against global warming find themselves with little upon which to stand, and even their financial supporters such as ExxonMobil are beginning to back away from their previous programs aimed at confusing the issue and suppressing any possible action. It seems that at last the worm is turning for climate change. Let us hope that the issue isn’t allowed to slide under the rug once again, and that some serious programs are launched to move the world toward a clean, sustainable energy model. It will be the greatest challenge ever undertaken by humanity, and perhaps the most important.

Posted in Climate Change, Law and Regulatory Issues, Politics | 1 Comment »

CNN Hints at Problems with U.S. Population

Thursday, July 6th, 2006

by Val Germann

The article went up this morning just before 6:00 a.m. CDT with a headline reflecting the lead paragraph, something like: “U.S. population growth causing headaches.” But within the hour it was changed to what you will see when you navigate now to the CNN site, something like: “U.S. Population increasing; Japan & Europe’s falling.” Why the change? Well, that first headline was likely too negative, too problematic, concerning our glorious increasing population, which almost everyone knows is an unalloyed good. Here’s the offending sentence:

As the U.S. population speeds toward 300 million, the growth is producing headaches for Americans fed up with traffic congestion, sprawl and dwindling natural resources.

This definitely goes against the current conventional wisdom where population is concerned. That is, it’s an unchallenged axiom that an increasing population IS “all good” in today’s world. Here in the West, where people are getting too old, on average, more young people are needed to do the work, in spite of all these machines which were supposed to by now be doing the work.

No matter, our rising affluence (the very goal of our civilization) has cut birth rates, automatically, a fact itself considered an unalloyed good until quite recently. Who wanted the teeming slums of Calcutta here in the United States, eh? Well, no one, or so it seemed.

But the teeming slums of Mexico City, transplanted into Los Angeles or New York, that seems to be different. Yup, it’s A-OK with almost everyone to have millions of illegals from Mexico and other points south living “off the books” in our fair nation. But is this really a good thing?

Of course it is! You see, unending growth is not just good but vital, and if we Americans won’t continue a high birth rate, why, we’ll just have to get some people in here who will. No problem, even if they don’t speak English or share our culture. People are people, right? Absolutely.

So, get ready for a great future, chock-a-block with fellow non-citizens sharing your air, water and lane of traffic. I can think of nothing better, can you?

Read the entire CNN article here.

**

Posted in Economics, Ethical Issues, Law and Regulatory Issues, Population Issues | Comments Off

Supreme Court to Hear Suit on CO2 Emissions

Monday, June 26th, 2006

By David L. Brown

In what could be a landmark case in environmental law, the Supreme Court today agreed to consider a suit asking for the U.S. government to recognize CO2 emissions as pollutants and to regulate them. The Bush administration has taken the position that voluntary methods are sufficient, and the EPA’s top lawyer, in a ruling that reversed a Clinton-era finding, has declared that the regulation of CO2 is not legal under the Clean Air Act.

The case, brought by a group of states, cities and environmental organizations, is a complex one with significant ramifications for the nation’s future direction on climate change. Lower court judges were split on the issue, but leaned toward supporting the administration. According to an Associated Press report this morning (read it here as reported on FOXNews.com):

A federal appeals court sided with the administration in a sharply divided ruling.

One judge said the EPA’s refusal to regulate carbon dioxide was contrary to the clean air law; another said that even if the Clean Air Act gave the EPA authority over the heat-trapping chemical, the agency could choose not to use that authority; a third judge ruled against the suit because, he said, the plaintiffs had no standing because they hadn’t proven harm.

Positions are quite diverse. Here is one point of view from the Sierra Club:

“This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants,” said David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club .

And here is what a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade association, had to say:

“Fundamentally, we don’t think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and so we don’t think these attempts are a good idea,” said John Felmy, chief economist of theAmerican Petroleum Institute, a trade group representing oil and gas producers.

The case is Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120. Massachusetts was joined by California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as a number of cities including Baltimore, New York City and Washington D.C., the Pacific island of America Samoa, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth.

The issue goes beyond possibly ordering the EPA to set standards and regulate emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG), because the decision of constitutionality will impact on-going local initiatives by states and municipalities to regulate and enforce carbon emissions. These initiatives are one of the bright spots in the gloomy outlook for climate change action in the U.S. A Supreme Court decree that regulation of GHG emissions is unconstitutional would be a significant setback for any progress on facing up to the real problem of GHG buildup in the atmosphere and the resulting climate change.

The announcement that the court will hear this case comes just a few days after the release of a report from the National Research Council confirming that global warming is real and that human activity is a cause. (See my article “NRC Committee: Global Warming Is Real,” posted 22 June.) The issue of global warming should be viewed as one that goes far beyond the niddling details of the law with its questions such as what the meaning of “is” is, and recognized as a social and moral issue of the gravest importance. We need an end to self-interested foot dragging and to get on with addressing what is with little doubt the greatest threat and challenge ever to face humanity. Let’s hope the Supreme Court justices are more enlightened than the lower court judges who have ruled indecisively on this issue and favored the administration’s head-in-the-sand position.

For its own part, in light of the NRC report putting in no doubt the real threat of climate change, the administration should dramatically reverse its position and put the full force of the government behind efforts to reduce GHG emissions from the world’s No. 1 source, America. If present law does not recognize CO2 and other GHGs as “pollution,” then those laws need to be changed and changed now. There is no longer any reason to raise doubts or continue to take a wait-and-see approach to this vital issue.

Posted in Age of Oil, Climate Change, Law and Regulatory Issues, Politics, Pollution | Comments Off

Has DDT Gotten a Bad Rap?

Friday, May 5th, 2006

By David L. Brown

The decision to ban Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) was made in 1972 after public fears arose from publication of Rachel Carson’s book The Silent Spring. For some time we at Star Phoenix Base have followed with interest reports on this subject. One writer who has covered this subject is Steven Milloy, on his website Junk Science. Molloy believes that DDT has gotten a bum rap. Here is an excerpt from an article by Milloy that appeared on FoxNews.com yesterday:

The U.S. Government has finally begun to reverse policy on the insecticide DDT. Let’s hope that this policy shift represents the beginning of the end of what can only be called a crime against humanity: the decades-old withholding of the world’s most effective anti-malarial weapon from billions of adults and children at risk of dying from the disease.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told the Washington Times this week (May 3) that it endorses and will fund the indoor spraying of DDT in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria kills more than one million Africans annually, mostly children under five and pregnant women.

Malaria accounts for 10 percent of Africa’s disease burden and causes $12 billion yearly in lost productivity.

USAID reportedly will use about 20 percent of its $99 billion budget to fund indoor spraying with DDT, according to the Times. “Between 1 million and 1.5 million people will be protected,” a USAID official told the Times. Read the whole article.

According to Molloy, “There never was any scientific evidence that DDT posed a risk to humans or wildlife. An EPA administrative law judge said as much after seven months and 9,000 pages of testimony about DDT in 1972. DDT wasn’t responsible for the decline in bald eagle populations, didn’t cause bird egg shell-thinning and didn’t cause cancer in humans, the judge determined.”
(more…)

Posted in Disease and Pandemics, Ethical Issues, Law and Regulatory Issues, Politics | Comments Off

Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006

By David L. Brown

Mercury is one of the most toxic substances known. U.S. environmental regulations require companies that produce mercury as a byproduct to recycle the element to prevent it from getting into the nation’s air, water and soil. Unfortunately, as this excerpt from the Wall Street Journal reports, the regulations have backfired:

While mercury recycling laws are effective at decreasing mercury released into the United States, they have resulted in the recycled mercury being actually sold to primitive gold mines in Latin America, Asia and Africa, where the mercury is used to extract gold.

The result is that the mercury is put back into the air and water and distributed worldwide where it eventually pollutes the very environment from where it was originally recycled. (more…)

Posted in Economics, Law and Regulatory Issues, Pollution | Comments Off

Did You Hear the One About the Lawyer … ?

Friday, April 28th, 2006

Law has become a morass of confusion and conflict, a kind of intellectual tragedy of the commons. In response to increasing conflict over ever scarcer resources, environmental law is too often guided by greed, personal ambition, and deception. When ecological science is misrepresented or distorted in the courts or governing bodies for the personal gain of individuals, organizations, and corporations, it is the environment itself that inevitably suffers. We will keep an eagle eye on legal issues that relate to humankind’s relationship with nature.

Posted in Law and Regulatory Issues, Satire, Irony, and Humor | Comments Off