Environmental Law

In The News (October 10)

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

• The ongoing debate over the economic impacts of environmental protection emerges again with France, Germany and Austria calling for an easing of European Union efforts to curb climate change and green groups saying that cutting fossil fuel use would buffer rising energy prices, says this Reuters dispatch. 
• And then there are companies that figure to benefit directly from a booming business in renewable energy, such as Applied Materials Inc., which says its solar equipment business could make up as much as a quarter of its sales in 2009, according to another Reuters story.
• Indian tribes, as well, are hoping that they can profit from Nature's "gift," the winds that they can harvest for energy, as told by The New York Times.
• Global warming is forcing animals and plants to move to ever higher elevations in an effort to find a satisfactory climate, with all kinds of implications -- many not good -- for the species, suggests this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. 
• Here's more on that plan for a floating wind farm on the ocean off the state of Oregon, which is becoming quite the center of attention for the renewable energy industry, from Greentech Media. For more on the proposal and the potential for the renewable industry in the Pacific Northwest, read Climate Law Update's previous coverage. 
• The international organization that regulates the hundreds of thousands of ships plying the world's oceans has approved new anti-pollution standards for the vessels, according to The New York Times. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency says the move means it can now move forward with adopting new rules under federal law.
• Capturing methane from landfills and other sources is the focus of a federal grant program that is awarding $4.5 million to 20 projects in a dozen countries that are intended to trap and use the potent greenhouse gas, according to a statement from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 
• The U.S. Supreme Court appears sympathetic to a Bush administration position that could limit environmentalists and other public interest groups from challenging federal regulations, reports Environment News Service.
• Federal environmental regulators have named FPL Group as one of the nation's top companies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reports the Miami Herald.
• A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher, with assistance from the military, is getting attention for pursuing ways of storing solar energy, focusing on artificial photosynthesis, according to this report from the U.S. Air Force.

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on October 10, 2008 (boomark / email).