Category «Environmental Law»

U.S.-Mexico Water Sharing: Background and Recent Developments

CRS – U.S.-Mexico Water Sharing: Background and Recent Developments. Nicole T. Carter, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy; Clare Ribando Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs; Daniel T. Shedd, Legislative Attorney. November 19, 2013. “This report is a primer on U.S. and Mexican water-sharing topics. It focuses on surface water quantity sharing and recent developments, including drought conditions. Due to Mexico’s recent below-target deliveries of Rio Grande …

Subjects: Congress, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research

Irreplaceable Canadian historic documents destroyed before promised digitized copies made

Via Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow – Canadian libricide: Tories torch and dump centuries of priceless, irreplaceable environmental archives “Back in 2012, when Canada’s Harper government announced that it would close down national archive sites around the country, they promised that anything that was discarded or sold would be digitized first. But only an insignificant fraction of the archives got …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Libraries

LA Times – Meager Sierra snowpack is way below average

By Bettina Boxall: “The signs aren’t good when the chief of California’s snow survey has to walk over bare ground to take a snowpack measurement in the Sierra Nevada, as Frank Gehrke did Friday near Echo Summit. Manual and electronic readings up and down the range placed the statewide snowpack at 20% of normal for this …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Government Documents

CRS – Rare Earth Elements: The Global Supply Chain

Rare Earth Elements: The Global Supply Chain. Marc Humphries, Specialist in Energy Policy. December 16, 2013. “The concentration of rare earth elements (REEs) production in China raises the important issue of supply vulnerability. REEs are used for many commercial applications including new energy technologies, electronic devices, automobiles, and national security applications. Is the U.S. vulnerable to supply disruptions? Are these elements …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents

Environmental Disclosure and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Environmental Disclosure and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Pietro Bonetti, University of Padova; Charles H. Cho, ESSEC Business School; Giovanna Michelon; University of Exeter; University of Padova; Yuki Tanaka, Hosei University, December 1, 2013. “Our study is motivated by the lack of overall consensus in the debate about whether and how capital market participants capture and value the disclosure …

Subjects: Economy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

MIT – Report On the State of Health and Urbanism

“A newly published research report from MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) highlights the complexity of the issue. Produced in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, the document examines an array of public health matters in eight major metropolitan areas in the United States, and suggests a wide array of possible remedies, from better …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Health Care, Housing, Knowledge Management

New Climate Change Study Projects Continued and Severe Future Warming

Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing, Steven C. Sherwood, Sandrine Bony & Jean-Louis Dufresne. Nature. 505, 37–42 (02 January 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12829. “This paper offers an explanation for the long-standing uncertainty in predictions of global warming derived from climate models. Uncertainties in predicted climate sensitivity — the magnitude of global warming due to an external influence — range from 1.5° C …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Knowledge Management

CRS – Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced?

Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced? by Robert Esworthy, Specialist in Environmental Policy. December 16, 2013 “This report focuses on enforcement of federal environmental pollution control requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA); the Clean Water Act (CWA); the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund); and other statutes for which EPA is the primary federal …

Subjects: Climate Change, Congress, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

NPR – Russian Warheads Fuel U.S. Power Plants

NPR – GEOFF BRUMFIEL: “Here’s a remarkable fact: For the past two decades, 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States has come from Russian nuclear warheads. It was all part of a deal struck at the end of the Cold War. That deal wraps up today, when the final shipment of fuel arrives …

Subjects: Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents

EPA Enforcement and Compliance History Online

“Use EPA’s ECHO website to search for facilities in your community to assess their compliance with environmental regulations. You can also investigate pollution sources, examine and create enforcement-related maps, or explore your state’s performance. Learn more about ECHO.”

Subjects: E-Government, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research

Court Decision in Tronox Bankruptcy Fraudulent Conveyance Case Results in Largest Environmental Bankruptcy Award Ever

EPA Case Summary: “On December 12, 2013, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York decided against Kerr-McGee Corporation (“Kerr-McGee”) and related companies that are subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (“Anadarko”) in a fraudulent conveyance case and determined that the defendants “acted to free substantially all [their] assets – certainly [their] most …

Subjects: Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research

CRS – Nanotechnology: A Policy Primer

Nanotechnology: A Policy Primer, John F. Sargent Jr., Specialist in Science and Technology Policy. December 16, 2013 “Nanoscale science, engineering, and technology—commonly referred to collectively as nanotechnology—is believed by many to offer extraordinary economic and societal benefits. Congress has demonstrated continuing support for nanotechnology and has directed its attention primarily to three topics that may affect the realization of this …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

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