Region: National
Professor William Boyd Joins UCLA Faculty
Leading Energy and Environmental Law Scholar Will Bring Key Expertise to Emmett Institute
We are very excited to announce that Professor William Boyd of the University of Colorado Law School is joining the UCLA Law faculty effective July 1, 2018. He will hold a joint appointment with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Professor Boyd is one of the nation’s leading scholars of energy and environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGA Stealth Attack on Public Health
No, this isn’t about the health care bill.
The Trump Administration has embarked on a campaign of postponing pollution regulations that protect the public health. Even if these are only temporary delays, rather than steps toward permanently weakening health protections, the delays are not innocuous. To put it as bluntly as possible, Americans will die as a result of these delays. For instance, …
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CONTINUE READINGFencelines
The Supreme Court rules on how to define a parcel of property under the Constitution
The Supreme Court ruled today on Murr v. Wisconsin, a takings case that could have potentially had a major effect on land use regulation. The Supreme Court has ruled that a “taking” of private property exists if the state prohibits all economically beneficial use of property. Naturally, lawyers have gleefully litigated the question of how …
CONTINUE READINGAfter Trump
Some day the Trump/Ryan/Pruitt era will end. We need to be ready to move forward.
Fighting the Trump/Ryan/Pruitt assault on environmental protection necessarily absorbs a huge amount of our energy. But eventually, the current conservative stranglehold on the national government will come to an end. Sooner or later, the government will once again come into more environmentally friendly hands. When that happens, we need to have practical, detailed proposals ready …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Truth About Environmental Originalism
Scott Pruitt advocates environmental originalism. It means the direct opposite of what he thinks.
Scott Pruitt has taken to talking about environmental originalism – going back to the original intent of our environmental laws. But he’s got the original intent completely backwards. The statutes weren’t intended to protect jobs or grow the economy. They were intended to protect the environment, with cost at best a secondary consideration. This is exactly …
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CONTINUE READINGWhen Trump’s Name is Forgotten, His Carbon Will Remain
Much of the carbon from his policies will remain in the atmosphere for centuries.
Given Trump’s desire to increase the use of fossil fuels, it’s no surprise that his presidency will result in increased carbon emissions. Some of the carbon will remain in the atmosphere for centuries, an enduring monument to his presidency and his rejection of scientific facts. Before the election, I took a stab at estimating that impact, based …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: BLM Methane Rule
BLM delays compliance date for certain provisions of the rule
As we reported earlier, the Obama Administration promulgated a regulation restricting the emissions of methane from oil and gas operations on federal public lands. Efforts to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn that regulation failed last month. Now the Interior Department is delaying compliance with certain provisions of the rule indefinitely, citing pending litigation …
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CONTINUE READINGNational Monuments Update
Interior Department releases interim report, recommends changes to Bears Ears National Monument
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke released his interim report yesterday on Bears Ears National Monument, recommending that President Trump re-draw the monument’s boundaries. Secretary Zinke’s report misreads both the Antiquities Act and President Obama’s 2016 Proclamation that created Bears Ears National Monument, and any move by President Trump to downsize the monument without an act of Congress …
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CONTINUE READINGBoosting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure To Meet Demand
Free luncheon and report release event at UCLA Law on Thursday, June 29th, with keynote by Energy Commissioner Janea Scott
Few clean technologies are as central for meeting climate change goals as electric vehicles. Yet in places like California, which leads the U.S. with approximately 300,000 EVs on the road, the needed charging infrastructure is lagging. Analysts estimate that the state will need as many as 220,000 publicly accessible EV charging ports by 2020 to …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dangerous Politics of Nostalgia
It’s a good idea to look in the direction you’re traveling, not backwards to your past.
In an airport, I recently saw a sign above the moving walkway advising us to face in the direction we were traveling. That’s sound advice for life in general and policy making in particular. It’s a recipe for failure to try to restore the past rather than looking toward the future. Unfortunately, rather than embracing the future, …
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