The President gave an indication of his environmental focus in his inaugural address, and then again in his state of the union speech. The focus would be on climate change.  Central to that focus would be the EPA Adminstrator, but that would not be Lisa Jackson who tendered her resignation at the end of 2012.  If Washington gossip is any guide, Ms. Jackson's replacement will be Gina McCarthy, the current head of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. We went looking to see if we could draw a bead on where Ms. McCarthy might lead EPA.  We found a recent speech and it was directly o...

On February 19, 2013, the Delaware Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee ("DSLRAC") held the second of three "public engagement sessions" to solicit public comment on a list of 61 "Options for Preparing Delaware for Sea Level Rise". These public engagement sessions are part of the second phase -- focusing on adapting to sea level rise -- of the DSLRAC's mission. The first phase focused on the preparation of a comprehensive assessment of Delaware's vulnerabilities to sea level rise. The Vulnerability Assessment modeled the effects of three potential sea level increases by the end of the ...

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court weighed in on an ugly property rights case last Friday concerning some beautiful beachfront on Martha’s Vineyard.  In White v. Hartigan, SJC 11072 (Feb. 8, 2013), the Court considered whether a deed conveying “the beach” in 1841 sufficed to give the plaintiffs title to “the beach” in 2004, notwithstanding that in the intervening century and a half the original beach had vanished beneath the waves.  The Court had little difficulty concluding that, absent an express grant of a moveable parcel, no moveable parce...

Is New Jersey placing the cart before the horse when it comes to the establishment of rules regulating the State’s Offshore Renewable Energy Certificates?  Instead of spending time analyzing how to mitigate the risks of possible state appropriation of OREC funds, let’s build a project already! In August of 2010, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act to “spur economic growth in the Garden State through the development of renewable energy resources and the creation of green jobs.”The legislation, which established the c...

One would think that preliminary estimates of bird fatalities at a proposed 78 MW wind farm in southeastern Minnesota were hardly news.  After all, there are over 60,000 MW of wind energy installed in the United States.  But last Friday the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by Robert Bryce, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Instittue, which used that preliminary estimate to rip into the project, New Era Wind, and wind energy in general, accusing the Fish & Wildlife Service of using a “double standard ... when it comes to renewable energy.”  The...

The draft “National Assessment of Supply Chain and Other Developing Risks” was issued just last month. It outlined increasing threats to infrastructure, food and water supplies, air quality, national security, public health and public safety, and ecosystems. It also discussed measures to reduce those risks and to address them. In short, the Assessment should be required reading for everyone involved in planning a company's response to the things that could destroy the company. Only it won't be because of one small detail. That title, the "National Assessment of Supply Chain etc.," ...