November 7, 2020 Trump Admin regulatory changes would end ESA landgrabs In 2011, FWS designated over 1,500 acres of land as critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog. Despite this designation, the dusky gopher frog…
August 26, 2020 Is California’s love affair with renewable energy behind the rolling blackouts? The blame game and the debate about how exactly to cope with reliability in a heavily renewable power grid highlight the fact that meeting…
July 8, 2020 Mayor of Eagar, Arizona: We are in the midst of the nation’s first political pandemic As grim as Covid19 is portrayed under the most drastic scenario, I dare say that we are facing a much more serious pandemic here…
February 1, 2020 NEPA has made lawyers rich but has done nothing to fix America’s crumbling infrastructure The NEPA process, intended to create a better forum to resolve disputes, so projects could be built more responsibly, has instead become a powerful…
January 10, 2020 National Environmental Policy Act reforms will advance critical infrastructure projects NEPA updates includes codifying aspects of President Trump’s One Federal Decision policy, which improves coordination and communication between Federal agencies and sets a two-year average…
November 1, 2019 Municipal “growth-management plans” and their crushing fiscal and social costs Median home prices in growth-managed regions are typically two to four times more than those in unmanaged areas. Growth restrictions also dramatically increase home…
October 18, 2019 The Trump administration’s successful war against bureaucratic bullies All of these cases share a common feature: They arose from unelected bureaucrats making completely selective decisions about how a law should be interpreted…
October 8, 2019 GOOD RIDDANCE: Now-defunct WOTUS asserted federal power over “virtually all water” That battle landed in numerous courts in 2015 when the Obama Administration issued a new interpretation of WOTUS. They said the new rule gave…
September 9, 2019 Federal overreach on private property puts endangered species at greater risk The reason for the law’s mixed results is clear: It makes rare species a significant liability for landowners, rather than an asset. Consequently, landowners…
August 17, 2019 Following years of controversy and corruption, Interior Department massively expands Ethics Program “…Investigations performed by the Department’s Inspector General over the years have highlighted a culture at the Department of the Interior that did not embrace…
