Florida

Florida is a Climate-Denying Hellscape

Florida lawmakers want to erase climate change from their laws and ban local heat protection ordinances ahead of what could be another summer of record-breaking heat.

Take the latest, science-backed climate policies that are gaining traction in state houses around the country — and then do the exact opposite. That seems to be the Florida playbook for dealing with the climate crisis facing Floridians in the form of rising sea levels and deadly temperatures.  This legislative session, state lawmakers in the …

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The Texas Paradox

Texas is firmly in the grip of conservative Republicans. So what’s the deal with renewables?

I sometimes ask students to guess what state produces the most wind power. They’re always shocked to find out the right answer: Texas.  Republicans have an iron grip on Texas government. And not just that, but Texas is by far the biggest producer of oil, with a governor who has pledged to protect the industry …

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Republicans Hate Your Grandchildren, Part 2

Rick Scott Makes Sure Floridians Won’t Know About Climate Danger

It’s a common refrain around the web that Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott looks a lot like Lex Luthor, the arch-villain of Superman comics. The term fits, both aesthetically and substantively: in his previous career as CEO of Columbia/HCA, he oversaw what was at the time the largest Medicare fraud in history. But as the …

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Previewing This Week’s Oral Arguments in the Supreme Court’s Most Important Property Rights Case This Term

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what is shaping up as the Court’s most important property rights case of the current Term: Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, No. 11-1447.  What can we expect? Koontz is one of three Takings Clause cases on the Court’s docket this Term.  …

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Property Rights & the Takings Clause: Prominent on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Docket This Year

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in a potentially-important regulatory takings case, bringing to two the number of Takings Clause disputes on the justices’ docket this Term. The newly-granted case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, No. 11-1447, involves the question of whether a government-imposed condition on its approval of a …

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More on Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Property Rights Decision

As fellow Legal Plant contributor, Sean Hecht, reported earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the most important environmental law case on its current docket: Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, No. 08-1151. The Court’s opinion can be found here. The issue in the Stop the Beach Renourishment case is …

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Supreme Court issues decision in Florida beach sand takings case

UPDATE: Rick Frank has published some insighful analysis here of the decision discussed below, including discussion of the impacts of the changing Supreme Court composition on the development of doctrine in the so-called “judicial takings” area. The U.S. Supreme Court just issued its decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection …

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The Supreme Court’s Love Affair with the Takings Clause–Not Over Just Yet

One of the biggest differences between the U.S. Supreme Court under former Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Court under current Chief Justice Roberts is the comparative interest in property rights and the Constitution’s Takings Clause. From 1978 until Rehnquist’s death in 2005, the Supreme Court heard one or more takings cases each Term–culminating in the …

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