Tag Archives: court

China To Limit Carbon Emissions for First Time

by Myrna Posted on June 3, 2014

Absolute cap to come into effect, climate adviser says on the day after US announces ambitious carbon plan. Air pollution in Beijing. jhphoto/Imaginechina/AP China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will limit its total emissions for the first time by the end of this decade, according to a top government advisor. He Jiankun, chairman of China’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing on Tuesday that an absolute cap on carbon emissions will be introduced. “The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap,” Reuters reported He as saying. Though not a government official, He is a high level advisor. However, Jiankun later in the day appear to row back on the comments. “What I said today was my personal view. The opinions expressed at the workshop were only meant for academic studies. What I said does not represent the Chinese government or any organisation,” he told Reuters. Read the rest at the Guardian. Originally posted here –  China To Limit Carbon Emissions for First Time ; ;Related ArticlesLive Coverage: Obama Takes His Boldest Step Ever To Fight Climate ChangeHere’s Why an Obama Plan to Regulate Carbon Could WorkDot Earth Blog: Rhetoric and Realities Around Obama’s ‘Carbon Pollution’ Power Plant Rules ;

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China To Limit Carbon Emissions for First Time

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Patent Court Judge Steps Down After Cozy Relationship to Patent Attorney Becomes Public

by JanetteRichmond Posted on May 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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Tim Lee writes about a recent scandal at the federal circuit court that specializes in patent cases:

Last week Judge Randal Rader, the court’s chief judge, admitted that he wrote an effusive email to patent attorney Edward Reines. The email praised the attorney’s work and encouraged him to share the email with potential clients, a breach of judicial impartiality. The revelation has forced Rader step down as the court’s chief effective this Thursday. Rader plans to stay on the court as a circuit judge. The Federal Circuit was also forced to re-consider two cases involving Reines after Rader retroactively recused himself from them.

Rader’s indiscretion is the last straw for Jeff John Roberts of GigaOm (no relation to the chief justice, as far as I know), who writes: “the Federal Circuit looks beyond salvaging. It’s time for Congress to disband the court.”

The problem with the patent court is that it seems to have suffered the equivalent of regulatory capture. I don’t know the backgrounds of the judges on the court, but they’re awfully prone to upholding patent claims. They’re sympathetic in terms of broad legal interpretations, widening the scope of software patents far beyond what Supreme Court precedent requires (or even suggests), and they’re sympathetic in terms of specific cases, where they rule in favor of plaintiffs well over half the time (see chart on right).

I don’t know if getting rid of the patent court and simply allowing patent cases to be heard by ordinary circuit courts is the right answer. That’s how patent cases used to be heard, but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Besides, that would require congressional action, and what are the odds of that? What’s more, if Congress did rouse itself to do something about this, a better course of action would be legislation that explicitly reins in the scope of software patents and does more to make patent trolling less lucrative. That would be the right thing to do. We can keep hoping, anyway.

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Patent Court Judge Steps Down After Cozy Relationship to Patent Attorney Becomes Public

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Will Only the Rich Benefit From the EU’s New Right to Purge Google?

by LynetteCjr Posted on May 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation isn’t happy about the new EU court decision that requires Google to delete links to information that people find troublesome:

When a newspaper publishes a news item, it appears online….Attempting to limit the propagation of that information by applying scattergun censorship will simply temporarily distort one part of the collective record in favor of those who can take the time and money to selectively edit away their own online blemishes….Meanwhile, a new market is created for mining and organizing accurate public data out of the reach of the European authorities. The record of the major search engines will be distorted, just as it was by Scientology and the Chinese government. Outside of Europe’s reach, rogue sites will collect the real information, and be more accurate than the compliant search services.

There are two interesting points here. First, that the EU ruling will mostly benefit the rich, who can afford to hire people to police their image and make legal demands to have links deleted. Second, that this will prompt the rise of “rogue” search engines that can bill themselves as uncensored.

The first point depends almost entirely on just how broad the court ruling turns out to be, and right now that’s deeply unclear. In the case at hand, the court ruled that Google had to delete a link because it was now “irrelevant,” a standard that’s fuzzy to say the least. Could I demand that links to dumb articles I wrote for my campus newspaper a few decades ago be deleted? How about a failed business from the 90s? Or bad student evaluations on an anonymous website? The court provided very little guidance on this, so only time will tell how broadly this gets interpreted. Either way, though, it’s almost certainly true that, in practice, only the fairly affluent will be able to take advantage of it.

The second point is also something to keep track of. The court ruling specifically targeted search engines as a way of exerting EU control even when the source information itself is held on a site outside of EU jurisdiction. But will this work? Creating a search engine isn’t all that difficult. It’s hard to create one as good as Google, but it’s not hard to create one that’s pretty good. And if that search engine is located solely in the United States and does no business in Europe, then the court’s ruling doesn’t affect it. However, residents of Europe would still have access to it unless the EU gets outrageously heavy-handed and tries to firewall unapproved sites, much as China does. That seems unlikely.

Now, it’s true that your average searcher would still get the censored Google results. At the same time, if a few uncensored sites pop up in response to this court ruling, it wouldn’t be all that hard for anyone who cares to use them. What’s more, the very act of filing a demand to delete a link would itself be a public record, and might produce more bad PR than the original search results ever did.

I remain opposed to this ruling, which seems vague, overbroad, and just plain bad public policy. But just how bad it is depends a lot on how things unfold over the next few years. Stay tuned.

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Will Only the Rich Benefit From the EU’s New Right to Purge Google?

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There’s No Good Reason for Keeping OLC Opinions Confidential

by JuliaBuley Posted on May 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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President Obama’s nomination of David Barron to the First Circuit Court of Appeals has reopened a fight over whether the White House should release Barron’s memo (written when he worked at the Office of Legal Counsel) justifying drone strikes against Anwar al-Awlaki. Time reports:

Under pressure from liberals and libertarians that threatens to sink a judicial nomination, the Obama Administration is moving closer to releasing a classified legal justification for the use of drone strikes against Americans fighting for al-Qaeda, Administration officials tell TIME.

….The U.S. intelligence community and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence want the Administration not to release the memo. Also against release is the Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as the in-house legal expert on executive branch powers and which vigorously guards its opinions.

Greg Sargent comments:

The case for more transparency was spelled out recently by the New York Times, which argued: “the government has the right to secrets about its operations, but not secrets about its legal reasoning.”

If there is a convincing rebuttal to that argument, I haven’t heard it. Indeed, one person who may agree with it is President Obama, given that in his big national security speech last May, he said he’d tasked his administration to “extend oversight of lethal actions outside of war zones that go beyond our reporting to Congress.” What is the rationale for keeping the legal justification secret?

I’d go further. I’ve never really understood the rationale for any OLC opinions to stay confidential. In some sense, yes, there’s a case to be made for executive privilege: this is advice from one of the president’s aides to the president himself, and courts have ruled that presidents have a legitimate interest in keeping internal advice confidential in order to ensure that they get candid judgments. But that’s a helluva stretch in this case because OLC opinions go beyond mere advice. For all practical purposes, they have the force of law, since presidents use OLC opinions as the basis for determining what they can and can’t do.

Should the United States have secret laws? As it happens, the United States does have secret laws. That is, actual congressional statutes that you and I aren’t allowed to read. So this isn’t quite as unprecedented as it seems. Still, that’s a rare occurrence, while OLC opinions are routinely kept secret. Why? If specific bits and pieces need to be redacted, fine. But in a democracy, the legal reasoning justifying the enforcement of our laws should be a matter of public record. We should all know what the laws of the land are and how the executive branch is allowed to act on them. There’s really no compelling argument on the other side.

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There’s No Good Reason for Keeping OLC Opinions Confidential

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European Court Orders Google to Remove Links That Annoyed a Lawyer

by FriedaConstant Posted on May 13, 2014

Mother Jones

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Google can be required to delete links to public records even when the records themselves are allowed to remain active:

The case began in 2009 when Mario Costeja, a lawyer, objected that entering his name in Google’s search engine led to legal notices dating back to 1998 in an online version of a Spanish newspaper that detailed his accumulated debts and the forced sale of his property.

Mr. Costeja said that the debt issues had been resolved many years earlier and were no longer relevant. When the newspaper that had published the information, La Vanguardia, refused to remove the notices, and when Google refused to expunge the links, Mr. Costeja complained to the Spanish Data Protection Agency that his rights to the protection of his personal data were being violated.

The Spanish authority ordered Google to remove the links in July 2010, but it did not impose any order on La Vanguardia.

Generally speaking, I’m in favor of greater privacy rights, and I mostly support the EU’s more aggressive approach to privacy than what we have in America. But this ruling is troubling. Not because Google has to delete some links—I can imagine circumstances where that might be justified—but because they’re being treated differently than the newspaper that published the information in the first place. It’s as if the court recognizes that La Vanguardia enjoys freedom of the press, but not Google. I’m not sure how you justify that, aside from a vague notion that La Vanguardia is a “real” press outlet and Google isn’t. But whatever notions you have of press freedoms, they shouldn’t rely on distinctions between old and new media. If La Vanguardia is allowed to publish it, Google should be allowed to link to it.

We’ll see how this plays out. To me, though, it doesn’t even seem like a close call. These are legal records; they were published legitimately; they’re potentially relevant regardless of whether the debts were cleared up; and they aren’t even that old. I certainly understand Costeja’s annoyance, but that’s not a good reason to abridge press freedoms so broadly.

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European Court Orders Google to Remove Links That Annoyed a Lawyer

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Liberals Fight Back Against Obama Court Nominees

by JoyBarnhill Posted on May 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Democrats may have done away with the filibuster for judicial nominees, but the infamous blue-slip procedure remains alive and well. This means that Republican senators can still block nominees unless President Obama cuts some kind of deal with them. That’s exactly what Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have done for the past several years, so in 2013 the White House negotiated a compromise with them. They agreed to approve several of Obama’s judicial nominees in return for getting their way on one of them. Now liberals are pissed:

Liberals are incensed that the administration is pushing hard for Michael Boggs, a judge on Georgia’s state Court of Appeals, to join the federal bench in Georgia. Boggs, a conservative Democrat, voted while in the state Legislature to reinstate a version of the Confederate flag as the state flag, opposed same-sex marriage and took positions on abortion that critics say would have limited women’s rights.

….As that fight plays out, prominent senators from both parties, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, are trying to block, or at least delay, a planned vote on Harvard law professor David Barron, whom Obama has nominated to be a judge on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from New England. As a Justice Department lawyer, Barron wrote at least one memo that provided the legal justification for the targeted killing of Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was slain by a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

In one sense, it’s hard to know what liberals expect here. Boggs is obviously not a good nominee, but it’s not as if Obama is in love with the guy. He just agreed to swallow hard and nominate him in return for getting support for four others. Since there’s nothing Obama can do about the blue-slip rule, he didn’t have much choice about it. As for Barron, it’s hard to be too shocked over his nomination. Obama himself approved the killing of Awlaki and has vigorously defended it. Of course he supports Barron.

But in another sense, it’s good to see liberals fighting back. Maybe it won’t do any immediate good, just as it doesn’t always do any good for tea partiers to harass mainstream Republicans. But if the fight is rough enough, it sets boundaries for future nominations. That’s probably the main benefit of opposition in this case: Both of these nominees might be approved anyway, but at least the White House will know they’ve been in a scrap. Maybe next time they’ll think twice.

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Liberals Fight Back Against Obama Court Nominees

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Another big EPA court victory — this time on soot pollution

by Colleen50E Posted on May 12, 2014

Legal trifecta!

Another big EPA court victory — this time on soot pollution

By

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The National Association of Manufacturers was told on Friday by a federal court that, no, it does not have the right to manufacture as many asthma attacks, heart attacks, and strokes as it would like.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the EPA acted properly in 2012 when it further restricted allowable soot emissions. It was the Obama administration’s third big environmental legal victory in a month. And experts say that bodes well for the administration’s efforts to clamp down on climate-changing emissions from power plants. The L.A. Times explains:

The 11-page decision rejected industry complaints and found that the EPA had acted reasonably and within its bounds when it adopted stricter nationwide standards for fine particulate matter. The tiny, chemical-laden particles and liquid droplets are emitted by power plants, diesel trucks, refineries and factories. They lodge deep in the lungs when inhaled and are linked to heart and lung disease, respiratory illnesses and premature deaths. …

Based on scientific studies, the EPA tightened annual limits on fine particle pollution from 15 micrograms per cubic meter to 12 micrograms per cubic meter and set new requirements for dozens of major cities to install air quality monitors to test for the pollutants near busy roadways.

This follows the previous week’s big Supreme Court ruling that the EPA acted properly when it restricted the amount of smog-causing pollution that can drift from coal-fired power plants in Midwestern states to East Coast states. And nearly a month ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected industry’s legal challenges to EPA restrictions on the amount of mercury and other toxic pollution pumped out by coal power plants.

“The three rulings together create quite the trifecta by significantly furthering the administration’s agenda on addressing climate change through the existing Clean Air Act,” Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard Law School, told the L.A. Times.

Reducing emissions of the tiny sooty particles, called PM2.5, will cost industry $53 million to $350 million a year, the EPA says. But health care costs will come down substantially thanks to reduced instances of stroke, cancer, heart attacks, and asthma attacks. The agency estimates that the health benefits will be $4 billion to $9.1 billion — a return on investment of $12 to $171 for every $1 spent on pollution controls.

But the financial benefits from averted health-care costs don’t directly flow to America’s big manufacturers, so the association that represents them couldn’t care less. Linda Kelly, general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, says the group will consider yet another appeal. She complains that the ruling “underscores the difficulty manufacturers face in pushing back against a powerful and often overreaching EPA.”


Source
Obama administration limits on soot pollution upheld by appeals court, L.A. Times

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Another big EPA court victory — this time on soot pollution

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House Committee Votes Unanimously to Rein In the NSA

by OttoHaigler Posted on May 7, 2014

Mother Jones

It’s pretty hard to find non-depressing news out of Washington DC these days, but this genuinely qualifies:

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 32-0 to approve an amended version of the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would require the National Security Agency to get case-by-case approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before collecting the telephone or business records of a U.S. resident.

….The USA Freedom Act, introduced last October, would prohibit bulk collection under the business-records provision of the Patriot Act, the law cited by NSA and Department of Justice officials as giving them authority for the telephone records collection program exposed by leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The bill would also prohibit bulk collection targeting U.S. residents in parts of another statute, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the NSA has used largely to target overseas communications. The bill would take the phone records database out of NSA control and leave the records with carriers.

Remarkably, support for this bill has stayed bipartisan despite the fact that President Obama supports it. And although it’s true that several provisions have been watered down a bit recently, the heart of the bill has stayed intact: a ban on bulk collection of phone records by the NSA. This is a pretty big deal, and it’s supported by Democrats, Republicans, and the president.

This represents the first time in decades that the national security establishment has been restrained in any significant way. And no matter what else you think of Edward Snowden, this never would have happened without him.

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House Committee Votes Unanimously to Rein In the NSA

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A Federal Judge Just Struck Down Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law. Read The Decision.

by Seymour89E Posted on April 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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Wisconsin voters won’t be forced to present a photo ID to gain access to the ballot thanks to a new federal court decision. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman ruled on Tuesday that the state’s voter ID law violates the constitutional rights of minority and low-income voters. In his decision, Adelman cited the Voting Rights Act to invalidate the 2011 Wisconsin law—passed by the state legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker—that implemented a photo ID requirement for all voters.

Voting rights advocates despaired last summer after the Supreme Court blocked Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a key provision of the law that required the government to approve any voting changes in states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination (Wisconsin was not one of those states). Since that decision, states previously covered by Section 5 have rushed to add voter restrictions. But based on Adelman’s logic, these controversial photo ID requirements that have been implemented across the country run afoul of a part of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court left untouched.

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A Federal Judge Just Struck Down Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law. Read The Decision.

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Supreme Court slaps down Big Coal

by Tetianah03 Posted on April 29, 2014

Take that!

Supreme Court slaps down Big Coal

By

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Take that, filthy old power plants. The Supreme Court says you can’t just send your pollution willy-nilly over state borders.

The New York Times reports:

In a major environmental victory for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the smog-causing pollution from coal-fired power plants that wafts across state lines from 27 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast.

The 6-to-2 ruling upholds a centerpiece of what has become a signature of President Obama’s environmental agenda: a series of new Clean Air Act regulations aimed at cutting pollution from coal-fired power plants. Republicans and the coal industry have criticized the effort as a “war on coal.”

More from the Associated Press:

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution from power plants can be carried long distances and the pollutants react with other substances to form smog and soot, which have been linked to respiratory illnesses and other disease. The cross-border pollution has prevented many cities and counties from complying with health-based air pollution standards set by law, because they have no authority to control it.

It will be expensive for electric utilities to comply with the EPA rules, and they’ll likely have to shut some polluting power plants down, but the administration argues that it’ll be worth it. From AP again:

The EPA said the investments would be far outweighed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in health care savings from cleaner air. The agency said the rule would prevent more than 30,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses each year.

Public health activists and enviros are psyched about the ruling. The Obama administration is pleased. People who simply like to breath clean air should be happy too.

The ruling also signals that the court might be supportive of EPA’s plans to limit carbon dioxide pollution from power plants via Clean Air Act regulations. Because Congress is deadlocked and won’t be passing serious climate legislation anytime soon, these types of regulations are one of the administration’s key tools for combating climate change. Proposed rules on CO2 from existing power plants are due to be released in June.

Today’s ruling “means that there are six Justices on the Court — including Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy — who are willing to follow the text of the Clean Air Act where it leads, recognizing that the Act provides the EPA with ample authority to address some of the major environmental challenges of our time,” Tom Donnelly, counsel at the progressive think tank Constitutional Accountability Center, told ThinkProgress.

With that, we can all breathe a little easier.


Source
In Victory for Obama, Court Backs Rules for Coal Pollution, The New York Times
Court upholds EPA rule on cross-state pollution, The Associated Press
What The Supreme Court’s Latest Air Pollution Ruling Means, ThinkProgress
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Supreme Court slaps down Big Coal

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