Month: March 2011

The recent court decision blocking California’s scoping plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: One-stop shopping for recent Legal Planet commentary

Several of the bloggers on Legal Planet have been commenting extensively on the recent California court decision that will block the California Air Resources Board from moving forward with its AB 32 Scoping Plan and related regulations.  I’ve provided links below to a series of our posts on this decision. The court, ruling on a …

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Political Fallout from Japan Hits Germany

According to HuffPo, BERLIN — German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives have suffered a historic defeat in a state ballot after almost six decades in power there, partial results showed Sunday, in an election that amounted to a referendum on the party’s stance on nuclear power. The opposition anti-nuclear Greens doubled their voter share in Baden-Wuerttemberg …

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Japan Nuclear Update

The NY Times has a very good page showing the current status of each of the six reactors.  All of them remain problems in one way or another, either because of the reactors themselves or the spent fuel.  The Post also has an interactive, featuring an animated presentation.  No one seems to expect a full …

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The Melting of Mount Everest

A spectacular and frightening graphic from Christina Larson over at James Fallows’ Atlantic blog: Larson posts a photograph that allows you to compare a picture of Mount Everest from 1921 with one from today.  Don’t look if you don’t want to see something sad; as Larson notes, the glacier atop Everest has lost 320 vertical …

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Might recent events allow Governor Brown to consider a new direction for AB 32 implementation?

My colleague Jonathan Zasloff suggests that environmental justice groups are using litigation to try to get leverage for some sort of compensation or other measures, rather than to actually stop the state’s cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases. I doubt that.  But what I do wonder — with no evidence, but I can speculate wildly on …

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Can the Air Resources Board continue to implement measures to reduce greenhouse gases?

One interesting feature of the court decision preventing the state from moving forward with AB 32 is that the court’s decision seems to halt implementation of the entire scoping plan.  As I’ll explain, this is an odd result, and one that may be legally required but doesn’t make practical sense. The legal flaw the court …

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Name That CEQA Plaintiff!

The recent environmental justice lawsuit on AB 32 carried with it a typical CEQA characteristic: the plaintiff is a community organization formed for the purpose of a lawsuit whose name is usually a play on the issue.  Thus, this case was Association of Irritated Residents v. CARB: “AIR,” get it? Cute.  But not even close …

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Two Cheers for Environmental Justice Cynicism

Ann is a little puzzled  about what the environmental justice community hopes to achieve by suing the state over cap-and-trade: why would a carbon tax be better? she asks.  Sean says that we need to understand that the EJ community is deeply committed to a series of process-oriented goals, and believe that these goals have …

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Reflections on environmental justice and AB 32’s emissions trading program

I have a few thoughts on environmental justice and the new court decision halting implementation of the AB 32 scoping plan, inspired by my colleague Ann Carlson’s post, and the comments on that post.  Reflecting on the environmental justice community’s successful (at least temporarily) attack on greenhouse gas emissions trading in California – and on the …

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California Dump Trucks v. CARB

The California Dump Truck Owners Association (“CDTOA”) filed suit in February 2011 against the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”).  The suit alleges that CARB’s Truck and Bus Regulation, which is part of the suite of regulations under AB 32 to address greenhouse gas emissions, is unconstitutional. CARB’s Truck and Bus Regulation sets stricter emissions standards for …

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