Environmental Policy & Law

How do we ensure funds are available on a national or even international scale when climate disasters strike? Daniel Morris, who is currently Advisor to the U.S. Executive Director at the World Bank, has spent recent years thinking about how to make communities and countries more financially resilient in the face of catastrophic disasters in the future.

Fellow David Gonzalez reports on his experiences at the Switzer Spring Retreat Policy Communications Training and the UC Grad Research Advocacy Day.

Energy issues create challenges and opportunities every year for local decision makers, writes Henry Herndon about New Hampshire. Challenges are not only in cost, but also in the vagaries of the State House. Opportunities lie in the marketplace for cost-saving technologies that are competing with traditional monopolistic energy services. Favorable state policies can help to cultivate these market-based alternatives, provided those policies remain in place.

As the Trump administration slashes federal estimates of the future costs of climate change, new research suggests that even the much higher cost calculated by the Obama administration might be too low.

In its first year, the Trump Administration undertook a program of extensive climate change deregulation. The Administration delayed and initiated the reversal of rules that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary and mobile sources; sought to expedite fossil fuel development, including in previously protected areas; delayed or withdrew energy efficiency standards; undermined consideration of climate change in environmental review; and hindered adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

Vermont has a problem. The state is $1.2 billion short of the funding it will need to meet federal targets for reducing pollution in state waterways. To solve that problem, Gov. Phil Scott suggested a creative solution last week in his budget address: Turning the pollutant into a commodity and selling it out of state. The pollutant is phosphorus, a primary ingredient of fertilizer, which is widely used in farming. ...