Environmental Law

In Other News (May 23)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• A federal rule exempting oil and gas projects from certain federal water pollution requirements was struck down by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision Friday. The Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued over the regulation, asserted the decision would protect thousands of streams and waterways. 
• Italy has announced it plans to resume building nuclear power plants, in a move that reflects growing concerns in Europe over skyrocketing oil prices, energy security and global warming, according to The New York Times.
• Biofuels play a “far from dominant” role in food price increases around the world, according to a study to be released next week by clean technology analysts, who cite supply and demand, crude oil prices and a weak dollar as major factors, says the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital. Shifting the blame away from ethanol is also a goal of shared by farm state lawmakers and key economic advisers to President Bush.
• Concern over global warming may break down along partisan lines, suggests a study that found Republicans who consider themselves well informed on the topic seem no more worried than those who profess ignorance, according to ABC News. 
• Some people think global warming is fiction but now it's fiction, in the form of an M. Night Shyamalan movie, that will be tackling global warming, reports a USA Today blog. 
• More than half the beaches on Maryland's Eastern Shore will be destroyed over this century by rising sea levels driven by global warming, concludes a new report cited in this story from the Baltimore Sun.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. has decided to stop contributing to some groups skeptical of climate change, reports Reuters.
  

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on May 23, 2008 (boomark / email).