Year: 2012
Environmental Law’s Lessons for the Health Care Mandate
The drafters of the health care reform law might have learned something from environmental policy makers when it comes to mandates and public opinion. When the five conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed a visceral reaction against the government compelling citizens to buy health insurance last week, their distaste was not unlike the visceral reaction many …
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CONTINUE READINGAuction prices in California’s cap-and-trade program
This week, the Emmett Center released a new paper on the potential legal constraints on revenue generated from California’s upcoming greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade auction. In that paper, we provide a general overview of the cap-and-trade auction mechanism and discuss the potential revenue raised. I would like to expand on that discussion in a series …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Takings/Flooding Case
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in what will be the first environmental case of its next (2012-13) Term: Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, No. 11-597. The ultimate question is whether the federal government is liable for millions of dollars in damages for flooding a 23,000-acre wildlife management area owned by the State …
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CONTINUE READINGWill California’s cap-and-trade program get 85% of its reductions from offsets?
Will California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program meet 85% of its required reductions with offsets? That is the claim made in a complaint recently filed in a California Superior Court, seeking to throw out California’s offset regulations. (Citizens Climate Lobby v. CARB.) The complaint cites a NY Times article from 2011, in which someone from …
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CONTINUE READINGPeter Douglas, RIP
Peter Douglas, who did more than anyone else to preserve the California coastline, has died at the age of 69. Rick and I discussed his retirement a few months ago here and here. He will be sorely, sorely missed.
CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest
Environmental law programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest — basically, the states in the Ninth Circuit — are very active in public service. Here are some examples: A continuing legal education program for lawyers on energy and environment. A natural resources clinic that participates in administrative proceedings before federal lands agencies. A …
CONTINUE READINGNew paper on California’s cap-and-trade auction revenue
The Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment has just released a new paper that describes how California law may limit the ability of California’s legislature to allocate revenue from the upcoming cap-and-trade auctions. Written by fellow bloggers Cara Horowitz, Sean Hecht, Ann Carlson and myself, the paper is titled Spending California’s Cap-and-Trade Auction …
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CONTINUE READINGHow CEQA Saved Mono Lake
Environmental lawyers and policy wonks know that the California Supreme Court’s famed decision in Nat’l Audubon Soc’y v. Superior Court, better known as the Mono Lake case, saved California’s second-largest lake from drying up. And to some extent this is true: I am working on a full-length book about the case, and so far that story seems to check out. …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking Ice, Rising Waters
The latest issue of Nature contains an interesting article about climate change — not the current warming but the last one, at the end of the Ice Age. Here’s the editor’s summary: A rapid sea-level rise occurred towards the end of the last ice age, during an event known as meltwater pulse 1A. The precise …
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CONTINUE READINGEyes Closed, Minds Shut Tight
According to a recent article in the American Sociological Review, rejection of science is on the rise: Just over 34 percent of conservatives had confidence in science as an institution in 2010, representing a long-term decline from 48 percent in 1974, according to a paper being published today in American Sociological Review. That represents a …
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