Los Angeles County Passes Motions to Protect Environmental Justice Communities from Urban Oil Drilling
UCLA Wells Clinic provides legal support.
This post is co-authored by Sean Hecht, Cara Horowitz, and Beth Kent. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed three motions earlier this month that will start a process of phasing out existing oil and gas drilling on unincorporated land within the County, prohibiting new oil and gas extraction wells, and implementing a strategy to transition workers to stable jobs in the clean energy economy. The landmark motions, which were introduced by Supervisors Holly ...
CONTINUE READINGIf not Berkeley, where?
Court order freezing UC Berkeley enrollment raises critical questions about how California provides for equitable growth in the state
This is my final post on the CEQA litigation over UC Berkeley enrollment. For earlier posts, see here (providing background information), here (discussing the implications of considering enrollment decisions to be within the scope of CEQA), and here (discussing whether to expand CEQA to cover socioeconomic impacts). In this final post, I want to explore the policy implications of the court’s decision in this case. The superior court’s remedy in this case is what r...
CONTINUE READINGWelcoming New Fellows to the Emmett Institute
This month, the Emmett Institute is excited to welcome three new fellows to our program: Daniel Carpenter-Gold, Heather Dadashi, and Andria So. Our fellows serve in limited-term academic appointments at UCLA Law to support our research, teaching, and public service initiatives. Our new fellows join Beth Kent, Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy for 2020-22. - Daniel Carpenter-Gold joins us as a Shapiro Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy for 202...
CONTINUE READINGWhen Agencies Fail
Lives can be lost when agencies fall down on the job.
What happens when agencies fail in their jobs? People can die. The most dramatic example is the opioid crisis, in which a whole series of state and federal agencies fell short. The result has been hundreds of thousands of deaths. The FDA was one of the prime culprits. It bought into a myth, carefully cultivated by the drug industry, that opioids were needed to treat an “epidemic” of chronic pain, with little likelihood of addiction when prescribed by doctors. ...
CONTINUE READINGCEQA and socioeconomic impacts
Why expanding CEQA to cover socioeconomic impacts might harm equity goals
Today I continue my series of blog posts on the CEQA lawsuit over UC Berkeley’s enrollment. My first post provided an introduction to the case and its background; my second post examined the risks of expanding environmental review to small-scale, individual decisions like the enrollment decisions at issue in this case. Today’s post will address the second major issue, addressed in the superior court opinion, examining whether UC Berkeley adequately analyzed the impac...
CONTINUE READINGWhat is a project?
Is admitting a student to a university the kind of project requiring CEQA analysis?
Yesterday, I introduced the CEQA lawsuits over UC Berkeley’s expanding enrollment and its potential impacts on the surrounding neighbor. Today, in my second post, I want to explore the implications of applying environmental review statutes such as CEQA to individual, small-scale decisions like university enrollment. The legal question at issue in the case was whether a university’s enrollment decisions – separate from any decisions about physical plant – are s...
CONTINUE READINGCEQA and UC Berkeley’s Enrollment
A recent court order freezing UC Berkeley enrollment highlights key issues in CEQA
A recent court order, freezing UC Berkeley’s student enrollment at 2021-22 levels, has earned some press attention and notoriety. Commentators on Twitter have accused the lead plaintiffs (residents in the Berkeley area) of being exclusionary NIMBYs. The court’s decision was premised on violations by UC Berkeley of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a law that has long been a lightning rod for controversy in the state. In this series of blog posts, I wan...
CONTINUE READINGDear 1L . . . .
Welcome to law school. You’re just in time to help save the world.
Dear 1L: You've gotten to law school at a crucial time for the future of the planet. The good news is that you're arriving at a pivotal point when your work as a lawyer can make a big difference. The bad news is that we have a limited amount of time to get the situation under control. You'll need to plunge right into the issues as a lawyer if you're going to contribute. At the end of environmental law courses, I used to tell students about the role they could pla...
CONTINUE READINGTackling Agricultural Methane: Monitoring and Policy Strategies
A review of inventory, monitoring, and regulatory tools needed to reduce agricultural methane emissions
(This post was authored by Eric Peshkin, a JD candidate at NYU School of Law and CLEE summer research assistant) Last week, global leaders announced a commitment to reducing global methane emissions. In a previous blog post, I briefly reviewed some of the innovative strategies to reduce methane emissions from agricultural livestock and rice operations, which have the potential to combat a significant source of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this post, I will desc...
CONTINUE READINGThe Global Methane Pledge
The US and EU Take an Important Step
I have written before about the importance of taking action quickly to reduce and eliminate methane emissions, including here. On Friday, the US and EU announced a Global Methane Pledge, which the UK and others immediately joined. The Pledge received limited press coverage, but it is an important step that will lead to real action, particularly if more nations join the Pledge in the run-up to COP 26 in November. Here are the basics: The Pledge aims to achieve ...
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