Articles

Fed Soc teleforum on ‘the right to a better climate’

December 20, 2017 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Last week’s teleforum focused principally on the recent oral argument before the Ninth Circuit addressing the federal government’s mandamus petition, which requests that the appellate court put an immediate stop to the litigation. … ...

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How should one measure the Endangered Species Act's performance?

March 14, 2017 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Property rights and other groups that seek reform of the Endangered Species Act oftentimes note that only a tiny fraction of the species that have been listed under the Act have recovered. Environmentalists typically respond that a recovery metric is not a good way to measure the Act’s performance. A good example of this defense, … ...

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Vilify critics now, send money

November 22, 2016 | By JAMES BURLING

My friend, Myron Ebell, at the conservative / libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute has become a chief fund raiser for all sorts of liberal green groups in this post-election season of hand-wringing. How did this happen? At the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron has long been skeptical of many of the claims made by the ̷ ...

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Zeal of climate change activists collides with the First Amendment

April 14, 2016 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Several state attorneys general have announced their intention to begin investigations of ExxonMobil.  They contend that the energy company may have violated state unfair business practice laws during the 1980s and 1990s by trying to mislead the public about the relationship among global warming, greenhouse gases, and fossil fuels.  Recently, t ...

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Washington court rejects environmentalist show trial, but with a scary opinion

November 30, 2015 | By BRIAN HODGES

It has come to this … using children as a stalking horse for a radical eco-technocratic agenda. Last year, a couple of well-heeled environmentalist organizations filed a petition, purportedly on behalf of eight school-age children, asking the court to force the Department of Ecology to write a climate change rule based on the science offered ...

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Why conservatives still hate environmentalism

September 28, 2015 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Pacific Legal Foundation does a lot of work protecting property owners from overbearing environmental regulation. Since that is how we roll, it was impossible not to notice the enthusiasm with which the environmental movement in the United States greeted last week’s visit of a certain world religious leader. PLF does not involve itself in re ...

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A pretextual climate change report?

May 06, 2014 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

This week, the Obama Administration released a National Climate Assessment that predicts dire consequences for the nation’s economy owing to global warming.  Here at Pacific Legal Foundation, we take no position on the scientific side of the climate change debate, but we do strongly believe that climate change should not be used as a pretext ...

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Decision deadline on wolverine listing pushed back

February 06, 2014 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Earlier this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service re-opened the comment period and extended the deadline for acting on the agency’s proposal to list a distinct population segment of the North American wolverine under the Endangered Species Act.  Generally, the ESA requires that the Service finalize a listing proposal within one year, but ...

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Greenhouse gas rules up in the air

September 27, 2013 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Today is a big day for all things greenhouse gas, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releasing its Fifth Assessment Report.  Earlier this week, the similarly named (but differently purposed) Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science.  These tw ...