“Smog and Sunshine” Has a Release Date
And this "Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air" is now available for preorder.
My book, "Smog and Sunshine: the Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air," will be released on April 7! It's been a long time coming. My author page is here And you can find links to preorder my book by clicking here or here Here's how UC Press describes the book: Los Angeles and smog have been synonymous for decades. From the 1940s through the 1980s, children breathed air so heavy with lead that their blood was poisoned with it. In 1970 offici...
CONTINUE READINGNightmare on Penn Ave (Part 2)
After a year of Trump 2.0, here’s how things stand.
Almost eight years ago to the day, I wrote a post titled “One Year and Counting.” I was writing at the end of Trump’s first year in office. And here we are again, one year into a second Trump Administration. Trump’s basic hatred of environmental protection is unchanged. But this time he has adopted a more radical approach. Below, I'll explain the similarities and differences between the headstrong anti-environmentalism of the first term and the harder-edg...
CONTINUE READINGSEQRA Reform
No, not CEQA, SEQRA. New York appears to be following California’s lead in overhauling state-level environmental review.
New York Governor Hochul this week proposed amendments to New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). The press release has a breathless title: “Let Them Build.” But the proposal itself appears to be very similar to what California just enacted. Housing projects in already developed areas, along with some other similar projects, such as parks, trails, child care centers, and some water infrastructure, will be exempted from review under SEQRA. ...
CONTINUE READINGCreating Lease Certainty
There are some steps Congress could take to increase certainty for energy leases on federal lands, but there will be tradeoffs.
As my prior two posts noted, there are substantial legal authorities that allow an executive to suspend or cancel leases for energy development. In the case of on-shore leases, that power might be extremely broad. And with an Administration that appears to use its powers to pursue political grudges and to push the envelope on what is legally permissible, whatever the cost to the long-term interests of the country, that kind of broad power might be a problem. But a...
CONTINUE READINGCanceling Onshore Leases
The executive may have broad authority to cancel onshore leases, perhaps even without compensation. Congress might want to fix that.
My last post covered the likely power that the Administration has to cancel off-shore leases for wind projects – a power that it probably has, if it was to ever get its act together. But even though the Administration has not yet used it, I think it probably has even broader power to cancel leases for onshore projects on federal lands – whether renewable (for this Administration) or fossil fuel (for future Administrations) – under current law. Below I summarize...
CONTINUE READINGCan They Do That?
The feds probably do ultimately have the authority to shut down offshore wind farms – if they ever get their act together.
This week, three different offshore wind projects that were targeted with shutdown orders by the Trump Administration won preliminary injunctions against those orders. Those lawsuits are in response to a blanket order in December from the Trump Administration, issuing stop work orders to all off-shore wind projects in the United States. (For some projects, this is the second stop-work order from the Administration, with the prior ones either also defeated in court or...
CONTINUE READINGWait — WHAT??
Science funding has been spared the worst cuts for now, but don't believe the hype -- and know that the White House has more tricks up its sleeve.
The topline headlines look great: CNN: Trump wants to slash funding for federal climate and weather research. Congress is about to tell him ‘No’ Reuters: US Senate passes bill to boost federal science spending after White House sought major cuts NBC: Congress passes bill to fund U.S. science agencies, rebuffing Trump's requested cuts And there is some truth to this. Despite the Regime’s Lysenko-ist War on Science, it looks like Congress is pushing back....
CONTINUE READINGMAHA’s Evidence-Free Health Policy
No matter how good your intentions, ignoring the evidence is a recipe for disaster.
Key health agencies are now in the hands of earnest, well-meaning people who, unfortunately, don’t know what they’re talking about. For example, the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccines is largely composed of vaccine skeptics. When the committee decided to eliminate a recommendation for Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, none of the speakers who addressed the committee, and no one on the task force assigned to investigate the question, was an expert on the disease...
CONTINUE READINGCrafting a Roadmap for Zonal Decarbonization in California
A new series of briefs from the UCLA Emmett Institute offers legal insights for the gas transition. First up: SB 1221.
California has a $43 billion problem: that is the estimated cost of maintaining the state’s gas network over the next twenty years. That is an astronomical amount to spend on what state policy dictates will eventually become stranded assets: California won’t be able to meet its ambitious climate goals unless it moves away from natural gas altogether, so retirement of these assets is a matter of time. In order to avoid saddling ratepayers with these ...
CONTINUE READINGBig Decisions to Come in 2026
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
I spent much of 2024 warning about the nihilistic goals of Project 2025 and then spent 2025 watching a lot of it come true. Our collective project for 2026 is to settle on solid alternatives to MAGA and decide on candidates. Luckily, last year also brought a growing resistance movement, lots of litigation, and unpopularity for Trump's “Toxics First” agenda. So, there is good reason to believe that this year may bring better news. If you want to know what environm...
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