Making the Most of Data Centers
Photo: chaddavis.photography
Data centers are driving energy demand at unbelievable scale. Regulators should use that to build infrastructure we desperately need.
If you’d asked me three years ago, I would never have guessed energy bills would be a salient political issue in 2025, let alone one that politicians anchor their entire campaign around. But of course, the cost of energy is quite different today than it was a few years ago. Electricity prices have increased faster than (already-high) inflation since 2022, leaving ratepayers on the hook for ever steeper monthly bills. At the same time, legislators are...
CONTINUE READINGYes, It’s That Time of Year Again
If you read Legal Planet, you know why the work we do matters.
Like everyone else, I’m sure you find fundraising appeals annoying. That’s why we only do them twice a year. But there couldn’t be a more important time for the work we do, given the urgency of the climate crisis and the ongoing policy disaster in D.C. Trump's second term has proved to be even more ruinous for the environment expected, with a dedicated effort to slash pollution regulation, suppress clean energy, and glorify fossil fuels. That makes the envir...
CONTINUE READINGTrump is Trying to Make Us Pay More for Gas
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
At a White House photo op last week, surrounded by rich auto executives and congressional Republicans, Trump delivered his latest blow to Americans’ pocketbooks by announcing a policy change that could cost us consumers up to $185 billion when filling up our tanks at the pump. If you’re scratching your head trying to recall this event, you probably read or watched coverage that framed it as Trump gleefully attacking Biden rules that encouraged electric vehicle...
CONTINUE READINGHow California (And Other States) Can Drive Demand for Clean Trucks
CLEE and the Emmett Institute release new report today and will hold Jan. 13 webinar with Energy Commissioner Nancy Skinner keynote.
This post is co-authored by CLEE fellow Marie Grimm. California’s policies to phase out polluting diesel trucks with zero-emission models took a major hit this year from the federal government. In June 2025, Congress voted to overturn federal permission for California’s zero-emission truck mandate (although this vote is now subject to litigation). In July, Congress then voted to terminate many of the tax incentives that lowered zero-emission truck costs. Furthermo...
CONTINUE READINGThoughts on COP30
What have we learned about the future of climate negotiations?
There’s a consensus that the COP30 was disappointing, although EU pressure prevented even more disappointing outcomes. It was just ten years ago that we were celebrating the emergency of the Paris Agreement as a big step forward. We have seen a bending of the curve since then, with the worst climate outcomes seeming increasingly unlikely. WAhat have learned and where do we go from here? The biggest lesson is that shared interest of all countries in taming climate ...
CONTINUE READINGThe CAFE Rollback Is Audaciously, Aggressively Awful
The proposal even rolls back standards that the first Trump Administration set.
This morning I blogged about some wonky reactions to the Trump/NHTSA rollback of the CAFE standards. Now I want to step back and highlight just how truly bad the new set of standards is, based on incredibly aggressive legal interpretations. As my first post highlights, the standards are set for ten years despite statutory language directing NHTSA to issue standards for not more than five years. And the standards are supposed to be adopted at least 18 months ...
CONTINUE READINGSome Early Thoughts on the Dismantling of CAFE Standards
In short, the new standards are full of legal problems (and substantively awful).
It's hard not to take personally this week's overturning of the Biden Administration's CAFE standards, and their replacement with standards that will, if finalized, reduce the projected average miles per gallon of the fleet from over 50 MPG to 34.5. The Biden standards were among my proudest accomplishments while serving at NHTSA (along with increasing NHTSA's budget by 50 percent and adopting the strongest safety rule in decades by mandating automated emergency braki...
CONTINUE READINGReplumbing Los Angeles – Painfully Slowly
The City has captured 5.5 billion gallons of stormwater since October 1st -- and that is literally just a drop in the bucket.
This caught my attention last week: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says it has captured nearly 5.5 billion gallons of water since Oct. 1 following the recent storms. Mayor Karen Bass' office announced the estimate on Tuesday, saying it's enough to serve almost 68,000 homes for an entire year. According to the National Weather Service, downtown Los Angeles received more than five and a half inches of rain in November, making it the 5th we...
CONTINUE READINGScience and Democracy
The scientific process is crucial for a well-functioning democracy.
Tomorrow, Berkeley's Center on Law, Energy & the Environment, and its Edley Center on Law & Democracy, will be cohosting a conference on science and democracy. The conference will dive deeper into the troubling situation that now faces us. It seems obvious — I would have said “everyone agrees” until recently — that you can’t make sound regulatory decisions unless you take the relevant science seriously. If you're searching for examples, you need lo...
CONTINUE READINGWe are Drowning in Plastic. Will a New Law Save Us?
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
My family recently spent a warm November morning ankle-deep in mucky, brackish water, fishing out used condoms and syringes near Venice Beach. It stands out as one of the best days I’ve had all year. We were volunteering with Ballona Creek Renaissance, a local nonprofit that alongside Friends of the Ballona Wetlands organizes creek cleanups and wetlands restoration projects. My son and a few of our friends had fun using those long trash grabbers and turning th...
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