Month: June 2012
NEWSFLASH — Court Upholds Greenhouse Gas Rules
From E & E news: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit announced it had denied industry petitions seeking invalidation of the so-called endangerment finding, the agency’s original conclusion that greenhouse gases pose a health risk and should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, and the “tailpipe” rule that set …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Two Clean Water Act Cases From Ninth Circuit
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in two high-profile Clean Water Act cases from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The justices simultaneously denied review in a major federalism decision, also from the Ninth Circuit, involving an industry challenge to a California Air Resources Board’s regulation requiring ships to use low-polluting fuels near …
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CONTINUE READINGPutting a Cap on the Green Paradox
The Green Paradox holds that emission control measures scheduled for the future can backfire. Foreseeing a smaller market in the future, fossil fuel sellers decide to unload more of their reserves now by cutting prices. A recent report from Resources for the Future provides more details if you’re interested (though the details don’t matter for …
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CONTINUE READINGRio+20 and Network Governance
Although I was in Rio last week, I was miles away from the actual negotiations, both geographically and metaphorically. But, as it turned out, the side events were at least as important as the actual negotiations. This is an interesting phenomenon. Some big international negotiations like WTO meetings attract protesters, but the big environmental negotiations …
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CONTINUE READINGUCLA and City of Los Angeles Publish First-Ever Detailed Long-Term Climate Forecast for a City’s Neighborhoods
A team led by UCLA researcher Dr. Alex Hall has released a study that projects temperature trends by neighborhood within the Los Angeles region for the mid-21st century. The report is the most sophisticated regional study of climate trends that has ever been developed, and is based on climate modeling two orders of magnitude higher …
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Declares Juries Responsible for Assessing Criminal Fines in Environmental Enforcement Cases
The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down its third and final environmental law decision of its current Term. (The case, Southern Union v. United States, is also significant for being the first criminal environmental enforcement case in the Court’s history) In a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled that criminal penalties sought by federal prosecutors in …
CONTINUE READINGIn the Supreme Court’s Crosshairs: the Ninth Circuit’s Environmental Jurisprudence
All eyes will be on the U.S. Supreme Court this week, as the justices conclude their current Term and, among other things, issue their long-awaited decision(s) on the constitutionality of the newly-enacted federal healthcare law. But the Supreme Court also has some other, key decisions to make as to whether to take up four controversial environmental cases from …
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Court of Appeal Upholds AB 32 Scoping Plan for Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Today, the California Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by environmental justice advocates seeking to scuttle the California Air Resources Board’s AB 32 Scoping Plan. EJ advocates objected to the Scoping Plan’s adoption of a cap-and-trade program to achieve some of the greenhouse gas reductions required under the landmark California law AB 32. Their primary …
CONTINUE READINGThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly about Coal
Coal is in the news these days. Coal is, of course one of the most abundant fossil fuels in the world. It is also one of the dirtiest, both from a conventional air pollution standpoint and from a climate change perspective. Conventional coal-fired power plants emit, for example, about double the carbon dioxide that combined …
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CONTINUE READINGHow much of the grid can be renewable?
How far can we go in converting our power supply to renewable sources? On June 15th, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory provided a partial answer when it released a “Renewable Energy Futures Study.” The team undertaking this analysis was comprised of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as from various national labs, …
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