New Report: How to Reduce Rail Transit Construction Costs and Timelines
New CLEE study recommends options for better project delivery in California and beyond + expert webinar January 27
A new study from the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law released today identifies the primary factors underlying cost and schedule overruns for rail transit construction and presents policy recommendations to overcome key barriers. Improving rail transit delivery is critical for meeting climate and equity goals, given that the transportation sector contributes the majority of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Sin...
CONTINUE READINGIncome-Targeted Environmental Policies, Episode 1
An introduction to AMI
This is the first post in a short series on income-targeted environmental policies. Read the second post, on LA's Transit-Oriented Communities program, here. As environmental law becomes more concerned with the equity of policy outcomes, income-targeted policy elements are becoming more and more common. This should be a good thing: income is closely correlated with pollution exposure, so income targeting can also ensure that programs reach the people who suffer the mo...
CONTINUE READINGMore on How the Vaccine Mandate Cases May Impact Climate Policy
How much is the Court likely to prune back EPA's powers?
In a Friday post, I sketched some thoughts about how the Supreme Court’s vaccine mandate rulings might impact EPA’s power to control carbon emissions. I think it’s worth unpacking both the Court’s opinions a little more and the issues at stake in a pending climate change case, West Virginia v. EPA. The Court ruled in both cases on the principle that an agency can take action of “vast economic and political significance” only it Congress has plainly autho...
CONTINUE READINGWildfires, CEQA, Climate Change & the Courts
Recent Court Decisions Halt Building Projects, Invalidate CEQA Reviews for Failing to Assess Wildfire Hazards
Environmental and conservation groups have for a number of years attempted to convince California courts of the need to integrate climate change considerations into environmental analyses prepared under the state's most important environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). However, the California judiciary has demonstrated little appetite for doing so. Until now. Recently, courts at either end of the state issued remarkably similar rulings ...
CONTINUE READINGToday’s Vaccine Cases: Implications for Climate Change Regulation
Today’s ruling are (somewhat) good news in terms of West Virginia v. EPA?
Today, the Court’s conservative Justices split the difference in two cases involving vaccine mandates, striking down OSHA’s mandate but upholding a more limited mandate for healthcare workers. The cases also split the conservative Justices themselves, with three hardliners (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch) seeking a more activist ruling in the OSHA case and dissenting in the healthcare case, while the more moderate block (Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett) supported a narro...
CONTINUE READINGThe Least Surprising Disaster in History
Some disasters come as shocking surprises. Climate change is the opposite.
Whatever you want to say about climate change, you can’t say we’ve been blindsided. The US has had decades to take action against climate change, and we spent nearly half that time deliberately making things worse. Scientists have had reasons for concern about climate change for over a century, and the first government report on the problem was fifty years ago. You may be able to excuse the lack of energetic support then, because the issue was on the periphery...
CONTINUE READING1990: The Year the Courts Discovered Climate Change
Cases were few, but one judge was years ahead of her time.
In an earlier post, I tried to figure out when the legal academy first discovered climate changes. As it turns out, it was almost a decade later when the federal courts took notice. Those first climate change cases shed light on how new issues get litigated and how courts respond to new science. My research method was simple. I did a Westlaw search for all cases that used the terms “global climate change,” “global warming,” “greenhouse effect,” or “gre...
CONTINUE READINGThe Quagmire of Clean Water Act Jurisdiction
The scope of federal jurisdiction over water bodies and wetlands remains as murky as ever.
The Biden Administration announced on Monday that it would not meet a February target date to issue a revised definition of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. It still plans to issue a revised definition later in the year. That sounds like a very technical issue. But it actually determines the extent to which the federal government can prevent water pollution and protect wetlands across the nation. The Biden proposal basically calls for case-by-case decision...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Does the Future Hold for the American Gas Station?
The end of the gas car will eventually leave 100,000 stations behind.
Gas stations have been fixtures in our world for a century or more. There are even books of photos of picturesque gas stations, some futuristic, others quaint. We’re transitioning into a world dominated by electric vehicles. What does the future hold for these icons of the fossil fuel era? There are now about a hundred thousand gas stations in the U.S. A majority are owned by operators with only one station, making them quintessential small businesses. They don’...
CONTINUE READING2022: The Year Ahead
Here are the five biggest things to watch for.
There will be a lot going on this year in the environmental sphere. I wanted to focus on a few big things to keep an eye on, rather than trying to give a long, comprehensive survey. Here are the five biggest things to watch for: Midterm elections. As of now, things are looking very good for the Republicans. If they sweep the House and Senate in November, that will mean the end of any chance the Democrats might have to enact their environmental agenda. It could a...
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