UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is hosting a full day event today on the timely topic of State Climate Policy in the Trump Era on Monday, May 22, 2017. There will be a live webcast for those who cannot join the event in person. Full details are linked here. And here’s […]
Pollution & Health
Guest Blogger Alex Jackson: The Way Forward on Cap-and-Trade
Incorporate Elements of SB 775 and AB 378 to Build on a Proven Program
California is in the process of defining the next chapter of its world-renowned climate leadership. Having pioneered a set of policies over the past decade that have put the state on course to meet its greenhouse gas emissions limit in 2020, lawmakers now face the question of what role the state’s cap-and-trade program should play […]
Guest Bloggers Michael Wara and Danny Cullenward: Understanding SB 775: A Realistic Path to Achieving California’s Climate Goals
SB 775 Provides a Strong Carbon Pricing Policy and Addresses Legal and Political Constraints
Two recent Legal Planet contributors have shared concerns about SB 775 over the last several days (Ann Carlson’s piece is here and Dallas Burtraw’s is here). We write here to provide context—economic, legal, and political—to help readers, and perhaps even these respected authors, better understand why the bill proposes to extend and evolve California’s approach […]
Guest Bloggers Amy Vanderwarker and Kay Cuajunco: Equity at the Center: SB 775 and AB 378 Create New Path Towards More Equitable, Effective Climate Policy
By Prioritizing Equity, We Fight Climate Change, Improve Local Air Quality and Public Health, and Deliver Economic Benefits
California is at a crossroads in our strategy to fight climate change. With the current form of cap and trade due to end in 2020, our state is deciding to what extent carbon pricing will play a role in meeting the 2030 targets enacted in 2016, and if so, what the program will look like. […]
Climate “Skeptic” Bret Stephens Cherrypicks Bad Climate Policies In The New York Times
Another misleading op-ed from the new columnist
Bret Stephens, the New York Times’ new columnist, got the climate change world into an outrage with his first column last week, which compared climate science to Hillary Clinton’s pre-election polling and argued for restraint from climate advocates. In his follow up column yesterday, he took a more measured tone, noting that he believes the […]
Guest Blogger Ben Levitan: The Tenth Anniversary of Massachusetts v. EPA
The opinion stands for EPA’s responsibility to address climate change based on law and science, and to safeguard public health and the environment under adverse political conditions
If it feels like we’re being inundated with bad news about federal climate policy, here’s a cause for hope: this month marks the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, one of the most important environmental cases in our nation’s history. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts came when the […]
Cutting Through the Smog
New research highlights the importance of reducing ozone pollution and suggests ways to do it.
As a change of pace, here’s a post that’s not about Trump, Pruitt, or their friends in Congress. Two recent papers highlight the importance of EPA’s tightening of the air quality standard for ozone and suggest some ways of doing so that could be more acceptable to industry. (We’re talking about ground-level smog here, not […]
Some Resources for Non-Experts (and for Experts Too!) on the Executive Order Rolling Back Federal Climate Change Regulations
Cutting Through the Information Overload
The President’s Executive Order rolling back climate change-related initiatives, “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth,” just came out today, and there’s already plenty of analysis to help people to understand its likely impact. While the short answer is that it is terrible for our country, the long answers tend to make people’s eyes glaze over if […]
Trump’s EPA Budget in Perspective
An new analysis highlights how harmful the cuts would be.
The Environmental Protection Network, a coalition of former EPA professionals, has issued a detailed analysis of Trump’s proposed EPA budget. We knew the proposal was bad, but the new analysis shows just how damaging the proposed cuts would be on many different dimensions. Here are a few key takeaways. First EPA’s budget is already lean. Adjusting […]
The Trump Administration’s False Stories About the Environmental Protection Agency Are Meant to Take the Agency Down
Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt Distort the Facts About EPA’s Mission, History, and Success
The Trump Administration has made clear its plans to systematically dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. Destroying the EPA will be a key element of the administration’s fight, in the words of White House policy advisor Steve Bannon, to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Republicans in Congress appear to support this effort. EPA Administrator Scott […]