The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law has launched the California Climate Policy Dashboard, a new web resource offering an overview of the key laws, programs and agencies driving California’s pioneering effort to tackle climate change, including: The landmark greenhouse gas emission reduction laws, AB 32 and […]
General
Contentious California Beach Access Case Heads to U.S. Supreme Court
Longstanding Martins Beach Controversy May Well Capture Justices’ Attention
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018-19 Term is already shaping up as a big one for environmental law in general and the longstanding tension between private property rights and environmental regulation in particular. The Court has already agreed to hear and decide two cases next Term raising the latter set of issues: one involves the question […]
Global market for ecosystem services surges to $36 billion in annual transactions
New article in Nature Sustainability tracks global payments for ecosystems services
In the early 1990s, New York City began paying for land management in the Catskills watershed to ensure safe drinking water for the city, avoiding the cost of building an expensive water treatment plant. New York City provides just one example of a growing number of programs – called payments for ecosystem services (PES) – […]
Supreme Court to Decide Another Major Property Rights Case
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018-19 Term is shaping up as a most consequential one when it comes to the intersection of environmental regulation and constitutionally-protected property rights. Today the Court agreed to hear and decide an important “regulatory takings” case: Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, No. 17-647. (Recently, Legal Planet colleague Holly Doremus wrote […]
Progress on California water data
Michael Kiparsky and Alida Cantor
Water data has become quite a hot topic in California, and rightly so: throughout the state, decision-makers desperately need better information to guide their efforts to better manage this resource. Recent legislation has gotten us to the starting line, but how well new data platforms ultimately serve water management will depend on clear thinking and […]
Ensuring Public Access to California Waterways–In Plain Language
New California State Lands Commission Public Access Guide Required Reading for Coastal Enthusiasts
California residents are passionate about their coastal and inland waterways–and especially their ability to access and enjoy these natural resources. It was concern over being “walled off from the coast” by private development that prompted California voters in 1972 to approve an initiative measure that created the California Coastal Commission and led to California’s Coastal […]
Guest Blogger Ken Alex: Working and Natural Lands, From Sources to Sinks
Post #6 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown
[This is the sixth post in a series expressing my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world. The introductory post provides an overview and some general context.] Roughly 80% of California land is protected or agricultural. That includes deserts, forests, wetlands, foothills, and multiple vegetative types, […]
Small Hands/Small Infrastructure
It’s not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a plan for toll road and local tax hikes.
The initial response to Trump’s infrastructure plan has been justifiably critical. Jennifer Rubin, my favorite conservative columnist, says the plan doesn’t pass the straight-face test. A good deal of it is designed to encourage privatization of infrastructure or to eliminate environmental safeguards for new projects. I want to focus on a different aspect of the […]
Trump Administration to Hold California Hearing on Offshore Oil Drilling Proposal
Sacramento Hearing Likely to Be Both a Raucous and Fundamentally Flawed Affair
Legal Planet colleague Eric Biber this week has published a series of posts on the Trump Administration’s controversial–and deeply flawed–proposal to open most of the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf to offshore oil and gas development. I won’t attempt to retread the ground Eric has ably covered, but want to highlight a major upcoming and related event […]
Guest Blogger Ken Alex: Methane, Black Carbon, and HFCs
Post #5 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown
[This is the fifth post in a series expressing my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world. The introductory post provides an overview and some general context.] One of the most important actions we can take to combat climate change is to halt the emission of […]