Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Environment roundup

  • “Rockefeller Foundations Enlist Journalism in ‘Moral’ Crusade Against ExxonMobil” [Ken Silverstein] Massachusetts was using courts to investigate heretics back before the oil industry was even whale oil [Reuters on subpoena ruling] Washington Post shouldn’t have run Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on climate politics without noting his brutal efforts to subpoena/silence opponents on that topic;
  • “Should you go to jail if you can’t recognize every endangered species?” [Jonathan Wood]
  • Sandy Ikeda reviews Robert H. Nelson, Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government [Market Urbanism]
  • D.C. Circuit shouldn’t let EPA get away again with ignoring cost of power plant regs [Andrew Grossman on Cato amicus brief]
  • Under what circumstances should libertarians be willing to live with eminent domain in the construction of energy pipelines? [Ilya Somin and earlier] Economic benefits of fracking are $3.5 trillion, according to new study [Erik Gilje, Robert Ready, and Nikolai Roussanov, NBER via Tyler Cowen]
  • “Dramatically simpler than the old code…[drops] mandates for large amounts of parking.” Buffalo rethinks zoning [Aaron Renn, City Journal] Arnold Kling on California’s housing shortage; John Cochrane on an encouraging Jason Furman op-ed; “Zoning: America’s Local Version Of Crony Capitalism” [Scott Beyer]

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3 Comments

  • first item: I like the irony of a foundation funded by the owner of Standard Oil is going after Exxon. The article seems to think the whole thing smacks of hypocrisy. Maybe so, but that is not something I would expect a conservative to argue in this situation.

    Irony is better. I could imagine that, if Standard Oil were alive today, the two foundations would be going after it, too.

    • By Allan

  • I have never heard journalist Ken Silverstein called a conservative, far from it, nor a libertarian either. I agree with Allan that irony rather than hypocrisy is the right term to describe the foundations’ vendetta against the original business that got them endowed, which means it is time to set the “Days Since Allan and I Have Agreed On Something” sign back to zero.

  • The backlash against the pipeline eminent domain cases is a variant of Gresham’s Law. Bad law (Kelo) drives out good

    • By Rxc