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January 17, 2025
Climate Science Whiplash
Did you know that climate change is making the San Francisco region more foggy? The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. Did you also know that climate change is making the San Francisco area less foggy? Declining fog cover on California’s coast…
January 16, 2025
After Net Neutrality: The Return of the States
Last week I discussed the Sixth Circuit decision classifying broadband as a Title I information service and effectively eliminating the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) general power to regulate broadband. But like nature, regulators abhor a vacuum. While closing the door to federal regulators, the decision also creates opportunities for states to act. This post examines the present…
January 16, 2025
AI-Generated Regulation: Not Ready for Prime Time (Yet)
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Generative AI has attracted great attention in the policymaking sphere, including for agency rulemaking. This report compares a final rule drafted by a generative AI model with the Department of Transportation’s actual rule. The AI model’s policy recommendations appear overly sensitive to the number of commenters supporting a…
January 15, 2025
Goodbye and Good Riddance to Meta Fact-Checking
The decision last week by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, to immediately stop using “fact checkers” — groups hired by Meta to determine what information is true and what is false, and thuswhat should be removed — represents not just a return to common sense but also good news for both science and…
January 13, 2025
Restoring the Lost Law of Eavesdropping
Under a standard of recency that allowed me to review a 40-year-old book in 2023, I want to celebrate the very recent publication, over a year ago, of two articles on the law of eavesdropping. Historically, there was fairly robust law on listening in. Given new technological forms of secret overhearing, that law may have…
January 13, 2025
EPA Should Reject California’s Locomotive Electrification Regulation
The California Air Resources Board last November requested from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a waiver under section 209(e) of the Clean Air Act for implementation of its “In-Use Locomotive Regulation,” an effort to electrify the cargo trains operating in California and therefore across the entire country. As of early January, EPA still has not acted, a…
January 10, 2025
Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms I
2025 is already shaping up to be a year of change for many reasons related to the economics and technology of energy. Between the uncertainty arising from a political change in presidential administration and the dynamics of technological change in the economy, the only prediction I’d hazard is that change will happen. Some of these…
January 9, 2025
Meta’s Content Moderation Turnabout
Today, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it would immediately stop using “fact checkers” to police the content on its platforms, which also include Instagram and Threads. Meta explained: “In recent years we’ve developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms, partly in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content….
January 8, 2025
The Interests of the U.S. and the Honolulu Climate Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court
The Office of the Solicitor General — part of the Department of Justice —was created by the Statutory Authorization Act of June 22, 1870. The Act states that there shall be an officer “learned in the law,” to be called the Solicitor General, to assist the Attorney General in the performance of his or her duties. The…
January 3, 2025
AI Will Have a Major Impact on Labor Markets. Here’s How the US Can Prepare.
The nation can do better at forecasting AI-driven job and skill changes, including with a data-focused nonprofit that examines the technology’s impact. Markets are the killer app for efficiently organizing unfathomably complex human activities to deliver innovation and prosperity. They can also shift suddenly, creating winners and losers, even as broad measures of economic health…