Region: National

States Rally Around Renewables

States have ignored Trump to promote clean energy within their borders.

CLEE published a survey of state energy policies through 2017.  The trend toward renewables has continued in 2018. Even after nearly two years of the Trump Presidency, states haven’t given up. Instead, they’re moving forward aggressively. If anything, Trump seems to have stimulated these states to try even harder. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s …

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On the future of climate policy

A response to William Nordhaus’s comments about how essential carbon taxes are to addressing climate change

William Nordhaus recently (and deservedly) won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on the economic implications of climate change and policies to respond to climate change. In the press coverage after the award, some comments were attributed to Nordhaus that I think are important to consider in more depth – in part because …

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Land Use Planning, Transit, and the Dodgers: The Legal Planet World Series Special

Stop the Myths About Evil Walter O’Malley

Since the World Series starts in a few hours, I fully expect the standard kvetchers to come out of the woodwork and complain about Los Angeles stealing the Dodgers from Brooklyn, etc. Peter Golenbock, in Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, compares O’Malley to Hitler and Stalin. Nonsense. It is time to set …

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What to Make of Chief Justice Roberts’ Stay of the Juliana Case

It’s only temporary but stay tuned

Last Friday, as Rick Frank previously blogged, Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary halt to the Juliana v. United States trial –the Juliana  case was brought by a group of children alleging that the United States has violated the public trust doctrine and various provisions of the US. Constitution in failing to protect them from the ravages …

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American Journal of International Law Publishes Symposium on Climate Change Localism

California rancher Ned Wood unlocks the controls for the photovoltaic solar cells and well pump on Friday, Jul. 24, 2015 in Contra Costa County, CA.

The online alter ego of the American Journal of International Law, AJIL Unbound, has just published its symposium on Climate Change Localism. The symposium explores the implications of subnational actors’ efforts to address climate change. The explosion of initiatives and declarations in recent years outside the federal government, ranging from state and local governments to …

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Modernizing the Grid

Utilities are spending billions of dollars to make the grid more reliable and sustainable.

In my last post, I talked about how Obama’s Clean Power plan was the right response to a changing grid. The grid is in the process of changing even more. Itwas designed for some relatively straightforward tasks. The main power plants, mostly burning coal (but sometimes natural gas or nuclear energy), ran day and night. …

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Jumping the Fence Line, Embracing the Grid

Precedent from another agency for the Clean Power Plan.

If you’ve been reading this blog or otherwise keeping up with environmental law, you’ve probably heard this a hundred times: In rolling back Obama’s signature climate regulation, the Clean Power Plan, the Trump Administration is relying on the idea that EPA’s jurisdiction stops at the fence line. That is, according to the Trump folks, EPA …

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Let’s Make A Deal

What Should Environmentalists Give Up – and Demand – For A Carbon Tax?

A nice editorial from the Los Angeles Times about the proposed carbon tax being offered by some Republicans under the front group Americans for Carbon Dividends, most notably former Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz. Exxon-Mobil is even throwing $1 million into the effort — chump change for such a corporate behemoth. The Times …

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Comments on proposed ESA rule changes

Law professors submit detailed comments on proposed changes to regulations that implement the Endangered Species Act

I’ve posted earlier about proposals by the Trump Administration to make significant changes to the regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act, some of the most substantial revisions to those regulations since they were overhauled in the early 1980s.  A group of environmental law professors (including me) submitted comments on those proposed rules last month, with …

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“National Security” Coal-Bailout Collapses

Trump demanded the use of national security powers to subsidize the coal industry. Looks like that’s not happening.

In its desperate effort to save the failing American coal industry, the Trump Administration promised to use emergency powers to keep coal-fired power plants in operation even though they’re not economically viable. That would have been the kind of disruptive change that Trump promised to bring to Washington. But the effort seems to have gone …

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