Posts Tagged ‘environment’

NYT public editor: yes, nail salon series had problems

Poynter: “A blockbuster investigation from The New York Times that provoked officials to intervene in poor workplace conditions in nail salons throughout New York ‘went too far in generalizing about an entire industry,’ Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote Friday morning.” That’s, well, cautiously worded: as critics have demonstrated, the series got basic facts wrong and its falsehoods have hurt thousands of New Yorkers, especially struggling immigrants, in multiple ways.

Major congratulations to Jim Epstein, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, and the others at Reason and elsewhere who relentlessly exposed the faults in the Times coverage. And Sullivan’s letter is revealing about just why editors until now ignored Epstein’s Reason coverage, which blew up some of the series’ central allegations about advertised pay rates in the Chinese-language press and about supposed clusters of health effects. “The Times has not responded [because] editors think the magazine, which generally opposes regulation, [is] biased.” Some Twitter responses:

So NYT editors dismiss criticism if coming from a magazine with point-of-view? https://t.co/7WhA24d5Aj pic.twitter.com/zpaFgMBjJd

— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) November 6, 2015

Worth noting that NYT opposes letting illegal immigrants work https://t.co/IsX0Xlv9bC Send them back to Fujian? pic.twitter.com/oAtjxxDCCI

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) November 6, 2015

Filed under: environment, minimum wage, New York Times

Environment roundup

Urban planning itself “has become the externality” [Randal O’Toole, Cato, quoting a New Zealand official]
New William Fischel book Zoning Rules! [Emily Washington, Market Urbanism]
If you didn’t catch the earlier update, Jim Epstein at Reason has a critique of the New York Times’s claim to have discovered a miscarriage cluster among nail salon workers;
Now available: latest annual report on bounty-hunting under California’s Prop 65 [Bruce Nye/Cal Biz Lit with analysis]
Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses: the opera [Jesse Walker, Reason]
Urbanization is good for the environment [Marian Tupy, Cato]
Regarding those reports that a major witness in the Chevron Ecuador case “recanted” [Paul Barrett, Business Week]

Filed under: Chevron, environment, land use and zoning, Prop 65

Environment roundup

Availability of Uber and Lyft at LAX airport tied up in lawsuits including one filed under CEQA, the California environmental-review law often used tactically to delay projects [Los Angeles Times]
Twenty years after his classic contrarian article on recycling, John Tierney returns with another close look at its pros and cons [New York Times] Quit scapegoating plastic bags, they carry enough weight as it is [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason, related]
California class action: Reynolds should have disclosed formaldehyde in vaping [Winston-Salem Journal] Authors of widely noted New England Journal of Medicine formaldehyde/vaping paper got “philanthropy to support research” from two big-league trial lawyers [NEJM paper, disclosure form, Joseph Nocera January, related April, August and recent New York Times columns, Michael Siegel]
Federal court blocks EPA’s hotly disputed Waters of the United States (“WOTUS”) rule [Jonathan Adler; National Wildlife Federation (pro-rule); Todd Gaziano and M. Reed Hopper, PLF (against), American Farm Bureau Federation (same)]
Environmental law firm intervenes in Louisiana governor’s race to tune of $1.1 million [Greater Baton Rouge Business Report]
Same state: “BP oil spill settlement to reimburse millions Louisiana paid to politically connected law firms” [Kyle Barnett, Louisiana Record]
Government subsidies for rebuilding hurricane-prone areas disproportionately aid the wealthy [Chris Edwards, Cato]

Filed under: BP Transocean oil spill, California, disasters, environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Louisiana, recycling, tobacco

Environment roundup

I own a Volkswagen clean diesel myself, and can recommend its terrific fuel economy and peppy performance. It’s almost too good to be true [Clive Crook on policy background] Class action lawyers expect huge payday from scandal, but their emissions might not be very reliable either [Daniel Fisher] More from Fisher: will VW owners actually take their vehicles in for the recall? and more on litigation prospects [More: Car and Driver];
Housing advocates looking for plaintiffs to sue Bay Area town that refuses to make its housing supply denser [CityLab]
Behind court’s strikedown of NYC Styrofoam ban [Erik Engquist, Crain’s New York; Entrepreneur]
“Did Flint, Michigan Just Lead Poison Its Children? Doctors Think So.” [Russell Saunders, The Daily Beast]
“Global regulatory norms” favored by pontiff “would globalize Argentina’s downward mobility.” [George Will]
After long silence, Hillary Clinton declares opposition to Keystone XL pipeline [Politico, more]
Houston: “For the most part, we don’t look all that different from other big cities that do have zoning.” [The Urban Edge; Kinder Institute, Rice U.]

Filed under: autos, Bay Area, environment, Houston, land use and zoning, NYC

Environment roundup

Study: California’s high-profile CEQA environmental-review law is used heavily against public, not just private projects, particularly environmental, transit, and renewable-energy projects [Holland & Knight; more, George Skelton, L.A. Times] Estimate: needless delays in infrastructure permitting methods cost U.S. economy $3.7 trillion [Common Good]
“‘[F]ive White Pelicans, twenty (regular old) Ducks, two Northern Shoveler Ducks, four Double Crested Cormorants, one Lesser Scaup Duck, one Black-Bellied Whistling Tree Duck, one Blue-Winged Teal Duck, and one Fulvous Whistling Tree Duck’ met their untimely end in an open oil tank owned by CITGO. Did CITGO ‘take’ these birds in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918? Fifth Circuit: There’s a circuit split, but we say no.” [John Ross, Institute for Justice “Short Circuit”]
Judge: no, “waters of the United States” don’t include dry land over which water sometimes flows [Andrew Grossman, Cato]
Just as we were getting ready with jokes about a wind shortage comes word that maybe there isn’t one [Tyler Cowen, AWEA blog]
After the West’s outrage-binge over lion trophy hunting, African villagers feel the repercussions: “Now they are going back to hating animals.” [New York Times]
“Solyndra: A Case Study in Green Energy, Cronyism, and the Failure of Central Planning” [David Boaz, Cato]
Serving municipal water without charges makes for both an economic and an environmental fiasco. Who will tell that to Ireland’s #right2water marchers? [Telesur TV, Charles Fishman/National Geographic]

Filed under: Africa, animals, California, endangered species, environment, Ireland

Environment roundup

Safe Drinking Water Act along with other federal laws helped scare consumers away from public fountains and tap water, with unintended bad consequences for health and the environment [Kendra Pierre-Louis, Washington Post]
Austin, Tex. ban on plastic bags isn’t working out as intended [Adam Minter, Bloomberg View]
After BP’s $18.7 billion settlement with five Gulf states, here come huge private lawyer paydays [Louisiana Record]
Energy efficiency in durable goods: mandates “based on weak or nonexistent evidence of consumer irrationality” with government itself hardly free of behavioral biases [Tyler Cowen]
“How Trophy Hunting Can Save Lions” [Terry Anderson and Shawn Regan, PERC/WSJ]
CPSC’s hard line on CPSIA testing of natural materials in toys based on “precautionary principle run amuck” [Nancy Nord]
Is the ideal of sustainability one we ultimately owe to hunter-gatherers? [Arnold Kling]

Filed under: BP Transocean oil spill, CPSC, CPSIA, CPSIA and toys, endangered species, environment

Environment roundup

Good news: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high [Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post “WonkBlog”; Shawn Regan, PERC]
“News Flash: Sitting on a drilling permit for 29 years constitutes ‘unreasonable delay’” [Jonathan Adler]
Forget it, Seattle kayakers: “Local environmental activists don’t get to make federal policy” [Aaron Renn, L.A. Times]
Alienating some old friends, Prof. Laurence Tribe says the Constitution doesn’t just let the President make up new law on climate regulation [New York mag]
Emily Washington on the long, failed history of progressive urban housing policies [Market Urbanism]
Court in Netherlands orders government to reduce carbon emissions [John Dernbach, American College of Environmental Lawyers]
If you missed the much-discussed William Saletan piece on GMOs, here it is [Slate; Jon Entine, Genetic Literacy Project]

Filed under: climate change, environment, Netherlands, oil industry

Environmental roundup

“Environmental review makes it hard to do anything — even make a new bike lane” [Matthew Yglesias, Vox]
Outdoors education: don’t just treat nature as a museum for kids, let them play in it [Lenore Skenazy]
Not more outcry? “Philadelphia To Seize 1,330 Properties For Public Redevelopment” [Scott Beyer, more]
Influencing proceedings against Chevron: “Documents Reveal Ecuadorian Government Organized Protests on U.S. Soil” [Lachlan Markay, Free Beacon]
Inholders can be caught in maze of jurisdictional obstacles when attempting to challenge federal land takings, Nevada church deprived of former water use deserves a remedy [Ilya Shapiro, Cato on cert petition in Ministerio Roca Solida v. United States]
Touchy legacy for HUD today: New Deal housing programs advanced segregation, sometimes on purpose [Coyote]
Payouts in BP Gulf spill headed for $68 billion, much going to uninjured parties, sending message to overseas investors not to invest in US [Collin Eaton, San Antonio Express-News] Bad results in BP episode will help teach Takata and other mass tort defendants not to try the “right thing” again [Joseph Nocera, N.Y. Times]

Filed under: BP Transocean oil spill, Chevron, eminent domain, environment, housing discrimination, Philadelphia

Environment roundup

Natural experiment in greater Dallas area on whether fracking is good for local land values or not [Peter Van Doren, Cato]
Inclusionary zoning drives up housing costs, allowing greater density would be better way to serve interests of poor [Scott Beyer] “The ‘Plan Bay Area’: Restricting Housing Development Isn’t Reform” [Jonathan Wood and Randal O’Toole, Forbes/Cato]
“Poorly argued, destructive in intent”: Vatican’s eco-encyclical is old nonsense in green new garb [Andrew Stuttaford, Secular Right]
“Lion hunters warn U.S. conservation rules could backfire” [Helen Nyambura-Mwaura, Reuters]
California’s notorious Prop 65: any hope for reform? [Cal Biz Lit, more]
Citizen suits and consent decrees: in New England, “Conservation Law Foundation wields tremendous power” [Peter Ubertaccio, WGBH]
“EPA Shifts its Legally Suspect ‘Environmental Justice’ Agenda into Higher Gear” [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
Breaking: Supreme Court rules 5-4 against EPA on Clean Air Act power plant emissions rule [CNN, Michigan v. EPA, Daniel Fisher, Andrew Grossman]

Filed under: endangered species, environment, Environmental Protection Agency, land use and zoning, oil industry, Prop 65

Schools roundup

Compulsory chapel (as you might call it) returns to British university life, this time in hopes of extirpating “lad culture” [Brendan O’Neill]
“Environmental history errors in a high school textbook” [Jonathan Adler] “Teachers’ union propaganda is creeping into California’s public school curricula.” [Larry Sand, City Journal]
University of Texas scandal included “attempt to get UT Regent…indicted for doing the work a regent is supposed to do” [Dallas Morning News] FERPA privacy angle: “UT-Austin Slapped Down for Withholding Docs in Admissions Scandal” [Greg Piper, The College Fix]
A proposal for reining in Rule By Dear Colleague Letter at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights [Mike Rappaport/Liberty and Law, earlier, more from Michael Greve]
Not a parody: “Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’… contains triggering and offensive material” [Columbia Daily Spectator, Legal Insurrection] “A new age of campus censorship” [Greg Lukianoff (FIRE), Minding the Campus]
“The statement is suggesting that, in CAIR’s view, ‘anti-Muslim speakers’ may already violate campus speech codes” [Volokh]
Quit giving your kid such a good start in life: two academics pursue egalitarian premises to their joyless conclusion [J.D. Tuccille, Crooked Timber riposte via A. Barton Hinkle, James Devereaux/Reasoned Liberty, Damon Root (on banning private schools)]

Filed under: colleges and universities, environment, schools, Texas