Trying to Create Permit Certainty
A new permitting reform bill does a good job of managing tradeoffs for a difficult problem
Last month two Senators proposed another permitting reform bill, the FREEDOM Act. This is a revised version of a bill that was introduced in the House earlier this year, which I wrote about before. (And yes, if you are having trouble keeping up with all the permitting reform bills floating around, you are not alone.) This bill is very similar to the House version, but it omits some of the provisions that I thought were most problematic. The basic concept is that...
CONTINUE READINGShould we be data center YIMBYs?
Photo by Geoffrey Moffett on Unsplash
Nobody likes data centers. Still, banning them in blue states alone may be a bad idea.
Monterey Park is not often called the New York of California, but the city resembles New York—the state, that is—in one big way: Both have passed moratoria on data center development. When Monterey Park passed its ban in 2025, it was the first municipality in California to do so. Nationwide, however, hundreds of localities have passed bans or moratoria on data centers. New York secured another first by becoming the inaugural state to impose a statewide moratorium...
CONTINUE READINGOff the Road Again?
Trump Administration revocations of ORV Executive Orders won’t have direct effects on the ground, yet.
Last month the Trump Administration revoked two executive orders over forty years old that directed federal agencies to restrict off-road vehicle use (ORV) on public lands in order to protect those lands’ environmental value. The revocation is, of course, controversial, and of a piece of a scorched earth approach to environmental regulation this Administration has taken. But does it matter on the ground? The short answer is, not yet. The reason has to do with ...
CONTINUE READINGRough Sailing
The Clearwater, the Coast Guard, and the First Amendment
Last week, environmental law professor Rob Verchick interviewed me about a First Amendment controversy involving the Clearwater, a ship that the Coast Guard excluded from a maritime parade for displaying environmental slogan.(Actually, I think it’s technically a “boat” rather than a “ship,” but let’s not get hung up on that.) The dialogue below is reposted from his Blue Tomorrow substack, and you can find the recording here. Rob Verchick: Welcome to Blue...
CONTINUE READINGIn Harm’s Way
Agency’s efforts to repeal harm definition for the ESA carries significant legal risks
The Trump Administration has finalized a rule that would eliminate the definition of harm from the regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Harm is one component of the definition of take in the ESA, and Section 9 of the ESA prohibits take of members of endangered species. As I noted last spring, when the rule was first proposed, the upshot of this change would be to eliminate protections of ESA-listed species from habitat modification under Section...
CONTINUE READINGCan We Avoid Another Day Zero?
From Texas to the Global South, Local Governments Need New Tools To Protect Their Water
You might recall "Day Zero," when in 2018, the City of Cape Town came perilously close to running out of water entirely. Only severe rationing and a good rainy season saved the Mother City. Now it looks like Corpus Christi Texas might be the next victim. Two years ago, I received a Fulbright Scholarship to study how Cape Town was changing its water policies in order to avoid a new Day Zero. The Palisades Fire and the Trump Administration meant that I was unable to...
CONTINUE READINGPondering the Effects of Biden’s Climate Policies
A new report has some unexpected implications.
A new report from an MIT researcher says that the “glass is half full” in terms of prospects for renewables in the U.S. This was interpreted by some to mean that Biden’s climate policies were proving successful despite repeal of key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. That’s a bit of a misreading. It also misses some key takeaways from the report. Those include skepticism about tax credits for wind and solar, an emphasis on removing obstacles to new projects,...
CONTINUE READINGScreaming in the Wilderness
More is screaming needed.
It is no surprise that, in the past couple of weeks, the Trump Administration has moved to gut habitat protection under the Endangered Species Act, opening wilderness areas to mining and oil drilling, and to eviscerate Monument designation for most of two wilderness areas in Utah. Trump and his allies made their intentions clear in the Heritage Foundation publication of Project 2025 published before Trump’s second term. In fact, CLEE published a Monograph in March...
CONTINUE READINGBring Back “Trump Classic”
The original version of Trump was bad. The current version is much worse.
We’re now almost a year and a half into Trump’s second term. From almost every point of view, it’s worse than his first term. It reminds me of the “New Coke” that Coca Cola once introduced, which was a disaster that led to the reintroduction of what was then dubbed “Coke Classic.” Trump Classic was committed to fossil fuels and eliminating environmental protections. But in almost every respect, his policies were less radical and his methods were less dr...
CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Upholds South Coast Zero-NOx Emission Standard for Appliances
The Ninth Circuit limiting EPCA preemption is a huge and important win for clean air.
Last fall I wrote about a strangely important case about boilers, in which the Ninth Circuit would decide whether a challenged zero-NOx air emission standard adopted by LA's air regulator was lawful. The case is important because it had the potential to significantly constrain the ability of air pollution regulators to do their jobs and implement the Clean Air Act using traditional air pollution control tools. Good news: The Ninth Circuit just upheld the air pollutio...
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