Posts Tagged ‘endangered species’

Environmental roundup

Environment roundup

Eensy weensy interstate impact

Is it constitutional for the Endangered Species Act to prohibit a property owner’s act of mistakenly stepping on one of a swarm of tiny spiders when there’s no evidence such an action has any impact on interstate commerce? [Trevor Burrus on Cato amicus brief in Fifth Circuit case of Yearwood v. Department of the Interior on listing of bone cave harvestman spider]

Making eagle feathers legally safe for Native American worshipers

Eagle feathers have long been important in Native American religious practice, but federal law generally bans possession of eagle feathers under stringent penalties. While the law authorizes the Interior Department to exempt Native American religious use, the Department has sometimes been stinting and ungenerous in its granting of permission. Although the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Indian worshipers in a big 2014 case under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, uncertainty continues to linger. Now advocates have petitioned for a rulemaking that would expand the exemption from federally recognized tribes only to all sincere believers including members of state-recognized tribes, and would set the exemption on a firmer legal footing for the future by taking it through the notice and comment process. [Joseph Davis, Federalist Society, earlier; End the Feather Ban advocacy page]

Environment roundup

  • “Whaling jobs were well-paying and glamorous by Soviet standards.” The story behind “arguably one of the greatest environmental crimes of the 20th century.” [Charles Homans, Pacific Standard]
  • Laying groundwork for high-stakes lawsuits against agriculture and livestock industries over CO2 emissions [Daniel Walters, SSRN via Twitter]
  • Laws banning plastic straws sometimes forget interests of disabled [Palo Alto Daily Post]
  • Oregon ban on gold placer stream mining, California law giving state first refusal right in federal land sales are two places high court might want to clarify boundary of federal and state land authority [Jonathan Wood, Federalist Society]
  • “The Troubled History of Cancer Risk Assessment: The Linear-No-Threshold paradigm, which asserts there are no safe exposure levels, is the product of flawed and corrupted science.” [Edward J. Calabrese, Cato Regulation magazine]
  • Why the vultures of Spain tend to avoid crossing over into Portugal [Bruno Martin thread on Twitter]

December 5 roundup

  • “An important win for property owners”: Supreme Court rules 8-0 that protected species habitat doesn’t include tracts containing no actual dusty gopher frogs and not inhabitable by them absent modification [Roger Pilon, George Will, earlier on Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Cato Daily Podcast with Holly Fretwell and Caleb Brown (“The Frog Never Had a Chance”)]
  • Proposed revision of federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would expand definition of domestic violence to include nonviolent “verbal, emotional, economic, or technological” abuse. Vagueness only the start of the problems here [Wendy McElroy, The Hill]
  • Bad ideas endorsed by the American Bar Association, part 3,972: laws requiring landlords to take Section 8 tenants [ABA Journal; earlier on “source of income discrimination” laws]
  • Minneapolis “Healthy Foods Ordinance” drives up costs for convenience stores, worsens food waste, pressures ethnic grocers into Anglo formats [Christian Britschgi]
  • New York Attorney General-elect Letitia (Tish) James has been zealous about suit-filing in recent years, quality another matter [Scott Greenfield]
  • “Plaintiff wins $1,000 in statutory damages for technical violation of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. (Debt collector illegally used the words ‘credit bureau’ in its business name.) After plaintiff’s lawyers seek $130k in fees, district court awards them the princely sum of $0. Fifth Circuit: Just so. While fees are ordinarily mandatory, ‘special circumstances’ obtain here: The record suggests that the plaintiff colluded with her lawyers to generate this ‘outrageous’ fee-heavy lawsuit in Texas instead of in her home state of Louisiana.” [John Kenneth Ross, IJ “Short Circuit” on Davis v. Credit Bureau of the South]

Environment roundup

“Is this picture of a falcon illegal?”

Animal-welfare regulation vs. rights of expression: “State and federal falcon-speech regulations fall into four categories: (1) generally banning images of falcons in all expression that is not about falcons; (2) specifically banning commercials that feature falcons but are not about falcons; (3) limiting compensation for falcon-related expression; and (4) dictating the content of falcon education programs.” So many different First Amendment problems there, and now “a new lawsuit filed by Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the American Falconry Conservancy and its members aims to strike down those anti-speech regulations.” [Jim Manley, Pacific Legal]

Environment roundup

  • “San Francisco Bans Straws, Cocktail Swords” [Christian Britschgi; more (funny memes proliferate)]
  • Sharper distinction between legal treatment of “threatened” and “endangered” species would help species recovery efforts and line up with Congress’s intent [Jonathan Wood, PERC Reports]
  • “It’s really interesting to me that the conversation around vegetarianism and the environment is so strongly centered on an assumption that every place in the world is on the limited land/surplus water plan.” [Sarah Taber Twitter thread]
  • New podcast from Cato’s Libertarianism.org on eminent domain and civil forfeiture, with Tess Terrible and Trevor Burrus. More/background at Cato Daily Podcast;
  • “OMG cellphone cancer coverup” piece in Guardian’s Observer “strewn with rudimentary errors and dubious inferences” [David Robert Grimes; David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine corrects piece by same authors, Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie, that ran in The Nation]
  • Oh, that pro bono: despite talk of donated time, trial lawyers stand to gain 20% of proceeds should Boulder climate suit reach payday [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine, earlier]