Did California Policies Make the LA Fires Worse?
California’s environmental and climate regulations did not make the climate-fueled Palisades and Eaton fires more destructive or harder to fight. Here’s why.
We know climate change is partly to blame. Are California’s environmental policies regarding land and water management also to blame for the supercharged firestorm that has ravaged Los Angeles? It’s not just conspiracy theories on social media or misguided news stories; that’s the position of some congressional Republicans and President-elect Trump, who hold power over future federal aid to California. The UCLA Emmett Institute's Denise Grab, Cara Horow...
CONTINUE READINGCollecting useful data on NEPA
A 2024 study falls fall short in shedding light on the impacts of NEPA litigation
As I’ve recently posted, permitting reform is (appropriately) in the news right now. That means there’s also a reason for various think tanks, NGOs, academics, and others to release studies that might inform the policy debate. One such study from 2024 that has gotten some coverage on social media recently is a report by the Breakthrough Institute on NEPA litigation. Whether, how much, and in what ways NEPA litigation shapes outcomes for federal agency decisionm...
CONTINUE READINGHonoring Michael Zischke (1954-2025)
A Force in the CEQA World
Many of us in the Legal Planet community are deeply saddened by the passing of Michael Zischke on January 2nd. A talented and award-winning land use and environmental lawyer, Mike was widely recognized for his extensive expertise in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) litigation and compliance. He co-authored Practice Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the two-volume treatise most often cited by California courts, first published in 1993 and now in i...
CONTINUE READINGRed #3 is Going
Will OYGBIV Follow?
Yesterday's FDA's ban on the food dye red #3, which takes California's recent ban nationwide, is welcome and long overdue. Red #3 is a known animal carcinogen, and appears to have been excluded from an earlier FDA ban on its use in cosmetics and externally applied drugs primarily through clerical error. As I described in a Halloween op ed in The Hill, the safety standard in Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act regulations compels FDA to deny market access to synth...
CONTINUE READINGJoe Biden, Hail and Farewell
His climate actions will resonate far into the future.
Joe Biden is about to vanish from the political scene, but not from the history books. The last election casts a pall on his reputation, as does his unpopularity. But history may be kinder, as it has been for Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. Beyond all else, he has been our best president yet on climate policy. For our descendants, that will matter a lot more than a couple of years of inflation that impacted their ancestors. Like many people, I think he should have quit ...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Will 2025 Bring in Global Climate Finance?
Last year, international negotiations continued to disappoint on global climate policy, forests, and finance. This year, subnational governments must continue to lead.
As they have for many years, nations came together in 2024 at various climate-related events to push for a brighter future. From the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Cali, Colombia in October 2024, followed immediately by COP29 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan, country negotiators hammered out language to advance the protection of and financing for the world’s spec...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Takeaways from Newsom’s Budget Proposal
The Governor’s proposed 2025-26 budget would tap the recent voter-approved climate bond and seek new emergency funds.
For more than a month, California has worked at “Trump-proofing” the State budget. Now you could say the Governor is looking to fire-proof it too. On Friday, as wildfires continued to rage across Southern California, officials from the California Department of Finance presented the Governor’s proposed 2025-26 budget. Earlier in the week, the Governor—who has been here in the Southland managing wildfire response and didn’t present the budget himself as h...
CONTINUE READINGTalking Climate Policy with an Energy Economist
An interview with leading energy expert Catherine Wolfram
I had the chance to talk about climate policy with Catherine Wolfram, a leading energy economist who has researched the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act. She was a longtime faculty member in Berkeley’s Haas Business School. She went to Washington to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the US Treasury in 2021-2022, and from there went on to join the MIT faculty. With that as background, this is a write-up of our conversati...
CONTINUE READINGHuge Snub for Big Oil at the Supreme Court
Oil companies failed to persuade the justices to shield them from the growing number of state lawsuits seeking damages for the harms caused by climate change.
Big Oil has failed to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to shield it from numerous state climate lawsuits filed across the country seeking damages for the harms caused by climate change — harms like the historic, supercharged urban fires burning in Los Angeles. The justices held a conference on Friday, January 10 to determine whether to weigh in on this state climate litigation against oil companies — specifically whether to hear arguments in their appeal of a...
CONTINUE READINGDOGE: A Dodgy Path to Deregulation
It's supposed to be cost-saving, but the savings are trivial on the scale of the federal budget.
Musk and Ramaswami have said that their DOGE project will cut the federal budget by eliminating unnecessary regulations and cutting regulatory agencies. Putting aside what “unnecessary” means here, that’s not even going to be a downpayment on the kind of budget cuts they’re seeking. The numbers are pretty simple. Suppose they eliminated EPA entirely. That would be a $10 billion saving. Sounds like a lot. But the Dogematic Duo talked about $2 trillion in cu...
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