Contra Costa Times, June 14, 2010 by Mike Taugher
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_15282537?nclick_check=1
“It doesn’t make any sense to do environmental analysis on the back end when you’re trying to help the environment,” said Holly Doremus, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. “What he’s saying is the agencies have to find absolutely the least burdensome way to save the species.”
-St. Petersburg Times, PolitiFact.com, Truth-O-Meter, June 1, 2010
bit.ly/aYZsSV
Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley who has studied the MMS permitting process, called it “a bit disingenuous” for Obama to focus solely on the 30-day limit….”I think rather that MMS has thought, and acted, as if it didn’t need to do detailed environmental review at the exploration plan stage” because it does them at the two earlier stages. “If that review were more thorough, and considered true worst-case scenarios, it might well be the case that 30 days would be enough to look at the environmental impacts of exploration in a particular location,” she said.
-Dateline NBC, June 4, 2010 by Aram Roston
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37518051/ns/dateline_nbc/
“They pretended they had already taken a careful look,” says Holly Doremus, an environmental law professor at University of California at Berkeley. “But it seems badly wrong. The bottom line was that the environmental analysis was completely unrealistic.”
-Rolling Stone, June 8, 2010 by Tim Dickinson
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0
“There was a complete failure to even contemplate the possibility of a disaster like the one in the Gulf,” says Holly Doremus, an environmental-law expert at the University of California. “In their thinking, a big spill would be something like 5,000 barrels, and the oil wouldn’t even reach the shoreline.”
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2010 by Eric Biber and Holly Doremus
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-doremus-mms-20100520,0,4734813.story
What’s needed is a wholesale shift in the agency’s culture. Culture change is not as simple as creating a new agency. But it can be accomplished, with determined leadership and sustained outside oversight.
-The Washington Post, May 5, 2010 by Juliet Eilperin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050404118.html?hpid=topnews
“They never did an analysis that took into account what turns out to be the very real possibility of a serious spill,” said Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has reviewed the documents.
-American Public Media, Marketplace, May 11, 2010 by Brett Neely
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/05/11/pm-offshore-oil-regulations/
The big question is whether splitting MMS apart will be enough. “I’m skeptical that will solve the problem….You need to get people from a different orientation to start with, or you need some serious leadership from the top.”
The Sacramento Bee, January 21, 2010 by Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/2477608.html
“Lots of people are uncomfortable with uncertain science,” said Doremus, who served on two prior academy panels. “The water users really want to know that when they’re giving up water, the fish will be saved. And that’s an assurance that just can’t be provided.”
Inside EPA, December 11, 2009 by John Heltman
http://insideepa.com/ (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)
“If it decides to revisit the regulations, EPA should do so with an eye to advancing the goals of the Clean Water Act, not just because industry finds the current situation inconvenient,” she wrote.
-Jim Prevor’s Perishable Pundit, November 9, 2009 by Jim Prevor
http://www.perishablepundit.com/punditprint.php?date=11/09/09&pundit=4
“These kinds of conflicts are very difficult to solve because they are quite entrenched in history. People have their emotional and financial investments tied up in many ways. And we don’t have institutions to find a way to make the tradeoff that has political support and credibility.”
-The Sacramento Bee, November 15, 2009 by Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/2326156.html
“This package does not confront the really tough questions,” said Doremus, co-director of Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and Environment. “It’s not going to radically shift anything.”
East Bay Express, April 8, 2009 by Robert Gammon
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=958833
The site was created by UC Berkeley law professor Dan Farber and UCLA law professor Ann Carlson, and it features blog posts from environmental law professors at both universities…. The site is sure to attract attention from attorneys, “but we’re also hoping to do this in a way that speaks to intelligent lay people,” said Holly Doremus, a UC Berkeley environmental law professor and contributor to the blog.
The Sacramento Bee, March 11, 2009 by Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/1688882.html
“There is, indeed, a salmon crisis in California,” said Holly Doremus, a UC Davis expert on state environmental laws. “We think it’s important to note that this is not new. It’s as if we’ve waited until we’ve had a heart attack to seek medical attention rather than take preventive action.”
“The bottom line is that California wildlife laws are both robust and legally adequate,” said Frank…. “The single largest problem with respect to fisheries is a lack of adequate fiscal and personnel resources at the Department of Fish and Game.”
Slate.com, Nov. 14, 2008 by Holly Doremus
http://www.slate.com/id/2204591/
“If the lower court was cavalier about the national-security interest, Roberts was equally so about the environmental interests at stake. He acknowledged the bland possibility of unspecified harm to an unknown number of marine mammals but not the detailed evidence of strandings, ear injuries, the bends, and ‘profound behavioral changes’ that had motivated the lower courts’ conclusions.”
KPCC-FM (NPR), Nov. 12, 2008, Hosted by Patt Morrison
http://www.scpr.org/programs/pattmorrison/listings/2008/11/pattmorrison_20081110.shtml
“The president is the commander-in-chief of the military. If the president says to the military, ‘No you don’t need to perform these exercises,’ that’s his or her prerogative. So it’s not that the military operates without control, it’s that the court in this case can’t exercise this particular type of control. It would have to come through the executive branch or through Congress.”