Judge Smacks Down EPA’s Attempt to Revoke Six of California’s Waivers
She calls EPA's legal arguments Orwellian.
Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is having none of EPA's shenanigans in the agency's most recent attempt to revoke four of California's waivers to cut pollution from vehicles. On Wednesday, Howell issued a preliminary injunction -- accompanied by a stinging opinion - ordering the agency to withdraw its decision to reclassify the waivers as rules. Judge Howell also denied EPA's motion to dismiss California's lawsuit. ...
CONTINUE READINGWhat In The World Is Happening At Nature?
Its recent editorial about Jason Arday should make us wonder whether academia adds value to anything.
By now, the tragic story of Jason Arday is well-known. But it seems that many people are doing their best to not learn anything from it. In this case, “many people” seems to be the editorial board of Nature, perhaps the most prestigious scientific journal in the world (together with Science). Nature’s editorial discusses the horrific hounding and negative media coverage of Arday, which at least at some level led to him taking his own life. There is no question t...
CONTINUE READINGStrictly Ballroom
How will the Supreme Court’s opinion impact environmental standing?
There’s a lot of concern about how the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Trump ballroom case could impact environmental law. The Court allowed Trump to move forward on his gilded monument to himself, despite the strong argument that he was violating the law. In the majority’s view, the problem was that the plaintiff lacked standing. The worry is that the Court may have cut back standing doctrine in a way that will block many environmental cases. My view, however...
CONTINUE READINGMoving Environment Assessment Outside the Permit Process
Streamlining is good but shouldn’t become an excuse for just ignoring the environment.
I’m very sympathetic to arguments that we’re unable to build important infrastructure, whether housing or transmission, because we have too much red tape. There’s a real temptation, however, to throw out the environmental baby with the procedural bathwater. It’s hard not to suspect that sometimes that’s the point and permit reform is just an effort to avoid considering environmental harms. Be that as it may, it’s easy to embrace restrictions on environmen...
CONTINUE READINGElectricity Affordability Legislative Rundown
Some thoughts on the end of the 2026 California legislative session
It's officially the end of the California legislative session. While the big end-of-session negotiation over changes to utility wildfire liability fell apart, several notable energy and utility bills made it onto Governor Newsom's desk. In particular, two bills addressing electricity affordability made it through: SB 1098 (Pérez) and SB 905 (Becker). (Sam Uden at Net-Zero California has an excellent rundown of several other climate and energy bills here.) Notably, sever...
CONTINUE READINGFour Tight House Races in California
None of these is a true toss-up, but they’re still very much in contention.
In Fall 2024, I posted about six hotly contested House races in California. Republicans ended up with control of the House thanks to winning some of those seats. This year, the picture is different due to California’s decision to gerrymander in response to Texas’s one-sided House map. I can only see four districts where Republicans seem to have any reasonable chance (apart from those where Republicans have been packed as part of the gerrymander). They all lean at l...
CONTINUE READINGThe Logical Next Step After Renaming Lake Ontario
How does the “National Oceanic and Manospheric Agency” sound?
HONORING THE MANLY HISTORY OF AMERICA’S AIR RESOURCES AND RENAMING IT THE MANOSPHERE. Executive Orders August 28, 2026 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and Policy. As I announced in Executive Order 14172 of January 20, 2025 (Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness) and in my August 27, 2026, order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America, it i...
CONTINUE READINGWhat We Know About Trump’s Impact on Clean Energy
U.S. clean energy has taken a major hit but not a fatal one.
Biden’s climate legacy has taken serious hits but more has survived than we feared. There’s a general impression that Trump has wiped out Biden’s ambitious climate statute and with it brought the energy transition to a halt. It’s become clear that the situation is a lot more complicated than that. Politico has unearthed new evidence about funding under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. That new evidence complements some of the other pieces of the puzzle. ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Attack on California’s Coast Puts Us in Uncharted Waters
The Drain is a roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
California’s coast faces danger from which of these threats: a) Increasingly likely Super El Niño b) Super king tides c) Rising sea levels d) The Trump Administration e) All of the above If you answered “e,” congratulations. California is staring down a rare convergence of El Niño, climate-fueled sea level rise, and big waves that could bring record flooding and erosion. But the fourth, and most detestable, threat comes from Trump attacking coas...
CONTINUE READINGA Better Approach to Wildfire on Public Lands
Why our proposal improves on Fix Our Forests.
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the seventh in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. The fifth post is here. The sixth post is here. Our current proposal includes a major reform of federal land management with respect ...
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