- Coming to other towns soon: new stormwater regs ban car wash fundraisers at schools in Arlington, Va. [ArlNow]
- Krugman hides the ball on coal-fired utility regs [David Henderson]
- Coming in September: book on Chevron/Ecuador case by Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Paul M. Barrett [Business Roundtable]
- Simplified narrative of “business versus environmental regulation” obscures so much [Tim Carney, Washington Examiner]
- Environmental disclosure panel from Vermont Law School “Disclosure Debates” [video, summary by Caitlin Stanton for VLR’s Environmental Health, links to all videos, background]
- California: “Attorney General Posts 2013 Proposition 65 Settlement Numbers” [Cal Biz Lit]
- “Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson” [Cato panel with Andrew Morriss, Richard Tren]
Posts Tagged ‘Prop 65’
Environmental roundup
- “A Poster Child for Overcriminalization: The History of the Lacey Act” [Jarrett Dieterle/Point of Law; earlier] “Strict Obama administration ivory ban infuriates musicians” [Bluegrass Nation/Daily Caller]
- California business didn’t think nutty Prop 65 warning regime could get worse, Brown administration might prove them wrong [Michael Feeley et al., JD Supra]
- “We’re definitely asking a judge to make a leap of faith here”: profile of Steven Wise, who files suits on behalf of chimps and other non-human “plaintiffs” [New York Times Magazine, earlier on Wise]
- Quin Hillyer gives thumbs down to Louisiana coastal wetlands suit [Baton Rouge Advocate, earlier]
- James Huffman on the public trust doctrine [Hoover]
- John Steele Gordon on California drought [Commentary]
- “It’s easier to engage and organize people around ‘fracking’ than a complicated list of practices.” [L.A. Business Journal]
March 27 roundup
- “Stupid Warning Shows Up on Leprechaun Hat” [Lowering the Bar, California Prop 65]
- Lawyers eager to sue over Malaysia Air disaster but first someone has to find the plane [ABA Journal, Bloomberg]
- Among the many accomplishments of distinguished economist (and total mensch) Murray Weidenbaum: introduction of White House regulatory review [Thom Lambert, David Henderson, Russ Roberts]
- Quicker but not ultimately cheaper than an appeal: “Losing Plaintiff Hits Defendant With a Truck” [Lowering the Bar]
- Feds’ Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) mulls idea “that the government involve itself in the lives of obese people by sending them regular text messages.” [Baylen Linnekin]
- Posner: judge below “should have smelled a rat” on lawyer’s “shenanigans” [Alison Frankel/Reuters, ABA Journal]
- “Connecticut chimp attack victim seeks right to sue state” [Reuters, earlier]
Environmental roundup
- Behind costly EPA crackdown on wood-burning stoves, a whiff of sweetheart lawsuits? [Larry Bell]
- Reminder: California’s Prop 65 doesn’t actually improve public health, makes lawyers rich, and harasses business [Michael Marlow, WSJ]
- “What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters” [Nathanael Johnson, Grist]
- Eminent domain threatens store owner in Fire Island’s Saltaire [NYP]
- In case you haven’t seen this one: chemical content of all-natural foods [James Kennedy Monash]
- “The court ordered that the county pay the turtles’ attorneys fees.” [Dan Lewis, Now I Know]
- “On the government’s books, the switch [from steel to aluminum in Ford’s new F-150 pickup] is a winner because MPG goes up.” [William Baldwin, Forbes]
Environmental roundup
- California: “Governor [Brown] signs Prop. 65 toxic chemical warning reform” [Sacramento Business Journal] What finally passed was a minuscule tweak mostly aimed at the law’s application to food and alcohol [Bruce Nye, Cal Biz Lit] Court helps in baby food case [JD Supra]
- “Taxpayer-Funded Journal Walks Back BPA Cancer Claim After Statistical Meltdown” [Trevor Butterworth]
- Recalling when the federal government (along with the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations] funded an attack on the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause [Gideon Kanner, more]
- CEQA reform [Calif. enviro review] in baby steps at most for now [SF Chronicle, Mercury News, L.A. StreetsBlog, Daily News, PublicCEO, Planetizen]
- Under decisions by the CPSC interpreting CPSIA, you’re probably not going to be able to make your product for kids out of recycled materials [Nancy Nord]
- “EPA Fares Well in D.C. Circuit” [Adler]
- Mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods are a bad idea [not just me saying that, but Scientific American editors; earlier]
“Five train wrecks of information disclosure law”
That was the title of the talk I gave Friday at a panel on food and product labeling law as part of a stimulating symposium put on by the Vermont Law Review at Vermont Law School in South Royalton, Vt. I drew on a number of different sources, but especially two relatively recent articles: Omri Ben-Shahar and Curt Schneider, “The Failure of Mandated Disclosure,” U. Penn. Law Review (2011), and Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong, “Evidence on the Effects of Mandatory Disclaimers in Advertising”, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Fall 2012. I was able to bring in examples ranging from patent marking law to Prop 65 in California to pharmaceutical patient package inserts, as well as the durable phenomenon of labels, disclosures, and disclaimers going unread even by very sophisticated consumers.
My talk was well received, and I think I might adapt and expand it in future into a full-length speech for audiences on failures of consumer protection law.
Frontiers in Prop 65 enforcement
“A [lawyer’s rep] discovered the scoops while walking through a store with a hand-held spectrometer that can detect the presence of chemicals covered by Prop 65” [Bob Dorigo Jones discussing Wacky Warning Labels contest]
On rubber worms: “Not for human consumption”
This year’s Wacky Warning Labels contest has reached the finalist stage. Others that made the cut: “Wash hands after using” on a common extension cord, a Prop 65 (California) warning on a box of matches advising that they may produce combustion by-products, and a warning on a pedometer that the maker will not be liable for any injuries to runners using the device. [Bob Dorigo Jones]
More: David Henderson on “warning pollution.”
Environment roundup
- Slate: it’s “fascinating, in a horrified head-shaking …way” to hear RFK Jr. spin his “delusional and dangerous” theories about vaccines [Slate and more, my two cents on the wayward scion]
- What insurance industry behavior tells us about climate change [Eli Lehrer]
- Concern that EU regulations on registration of seed varieties could squeeze smalls, locals, heirlooms [Glyn Moody, TechDirt; Domenic Berry]
- Environmental suits as backdoor grab for policy control [U.S. Chamber, Ron Arnold, DC Examiner and more (“sweetheart litigation”), WLF]
- Symposium on conservatives and the environment: Jonathan Adler, Eli Lehrer, Shi-Ling Hsu and others [Duke Environmental and Policy Law Forum]
- U.K. study: cancer rates and mortality rates among pesticide workers are below the norm [Health and Safety Executive via Angela Logomasini, CEI]
- “Wi-fi made us sick” suit cost city of Portland $172K, but at least voters didn’t put sponsor on school board [Will Radik, Bad Skeptic]
- “EPA acknowledges releasing personal details on farmers” [Fox News] GOP senators introduce bill to curb EPA wetlands overreach [Ilya Shapiro]
- Attorneys’ fees often amount to 80-90% of settlement amounts: latest annual Prop 65 report is out [California attorney general’s office, background]
Prop 65: how serious are Gov. Brown’s reforms?
Not very, fears Bruce Nye at Cal Biz Lit, who notes that “The Chanler Group, the self-described ‘Largest Proposition 65 Citizen Enforcement Law Firm,’ wasted no time in announcing its support for the Governor’s proposals.” Prop 65, of course, is the famous California enactment under which an army of bounty-hunters have set forth to file suits and collect settlements from California businesses for failing to warn of the carcinogenic or mutagenic ingredients in hundreds of common products, from matches (which emit carbon monoxide) to brass knobs to roasted coffee to grilled chicken to billiard cue chalk. Gov. Brown’s reforms omit several stronger recommendations, such as “moving the burden of proof to the plaintiff to show that exposures exceed the applicable no significant risk level (‘NSRL’) or maximum allowable dose level (‘MADL’).”
Most importantly, would the private enforcer bar support Assembly Member Gatto’s AB 227, allowing a company receiving a 60 day notice to avoid prosecution by curing the violation within 14 days? Or better still, Cal Biz Lit’s proposal to allow sixty days to cure violations?
Those measures would be real reform.