California’s Electric Car Culture
The state has been pushing EVs for over thirty years, with huge progress in the past five years.
Since the Pavley Act passed in 2002, California has been a leader in cutting greenhouse gas emissions from new cars. Even today, a third of all new U.S. electric vehicles (EVs) are sold in California. Getting here has been the result of a long regulatory process, which helped create a market for companies like Tesla. Achieving California’s ambitious targets will require an exponential increase in EV sales over the next eleven years. In this post, I trace the history ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Libertarian Critique of Trump’s “Schedule F”
As it turns out, you can hate BOTH government regulation and Trump’s assault on the “deep state.”
Skepticism about regulation is part of the Cato Institute's DNA. Cato is the country’s leading libertarian think tank. But Cato is no friend of Schedule F, the centerpiece of Trump’s attack on the bureaucracy during his presidency. Schedule F, which is also a core part of Project 2025, aimed to take thousands of senior officials out of the Civil Service system so they could be replaced by Trump loyalists. Trump initial effort was repealed by Biden, but he has p...
CONTINUE READINGOil and Gas Sponsorships in Major League Sports
A survey of sponsorships across six major league sports leagues in the U.S. reveals more than 60 deals with high-polluting companies.
If California Attorney General Rob Bonta attends a home game to cheer on his local NBA team—the Sacramento Kings—he may encounter sponsorship ads promoting not one but two of the oil companies he’s suing for allegedly deceiving the public about climate change. Then again, Attorney General Bonta, a former soccer player and self-described soccer dad, might be more likely to attend a Los Angeles Football Club game at BMO Stadium while working in L.A. There to...
CONTINUE READINGA New Energy Project at UCLA Law
The Emmett Clean Energy Law & Leadership project will build a bridge between the existing expertise of UCLA’s energy law scholars and policymakers.
You don’t have to look beyond the front pages of newspapers, or beyond rooftops in your neighborhood to know that we are in the midst of a clean energy revolution, with renewable energy technologies dramatically decreasing in price and increasing in availability. These technologies promise to reduce energy cost burdens for households, as well as reduce climate- and health-harming pollution. However, there are many legal and policy challenges to overcome to ensure t...
CONTINUE READINGChina, Climate, and Clean Energy
China seems to have leap-frogged the U.S. on clean energy. We need to catch up.
China accounts for almost a third of global emissions, over twice as much as the U.S. Its emissions have continued to grow, though not as quickly as during its economic boom years earlier in this century. Yet in 2023, China accounted for about 60% of the world’s new renewables and electric vehicles. Four questions: Why have emissions continued to grow despite the huge expansion in renewables? Will that change? How is China's clean energy spree impacting other...
CONTINUE READINGThe Case that Wouldn’t Die
The Juliana plaintiffs make a final effort to resurrect their case.
Since you’re reading Legal Planet, you probably know already that the Juliana case is an effort to force fundamental reform of federal climate and energy policies. Here's the state of play: (1) the Ninth Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs had no standing because the case violated the separation of powers; (2) the district court tried to sidestep that ruling; and (3) the Ninth Circuit responded with a mandamus writ to end the case. Which brings us to (4): plaintiff...
CONTINUE READINGThe State of the Race
Who will shape federal climate and energy policies? The answer remains too close to call.
The summer had a lot of political ups-and-downs: Biden’s weak debate performance, his withdrawal, the failed assassination of Trump, Harris’s rise, her choice of Walz, and convention bumps on both sides. We’re now settling into the final stretch. It’s time to look at the state of play, in an election that seems unusually weighty in its policy implications. In terms of energy and climate policy, the two parties are far apart, so a lot is riding on the outcome....
CONTINUE READINGWhy the 2024 House Races Matter So Much for Energy and Climate Policy
Those races get a lot less attention than elections for the Senate, but they’re equally important.
The House of Representatives has 435 members, which means 435 elections every two years. Due to gerrymandering and political geography, most of those are safe seats. But even today, there are probably thirty or so genuinely contested elections – too many for most of us to pay attention to. Yet, control of the House could make all the difference next year – especially if Trump returns to the White House. This is a companion to my other post today, which surveys the ...
CONTINUE READINGElectric Shared Mobility:
Program Design Elements Can Produce More Equitable, Durable, and Successful Projects
Shared mobility—an umbrella term for any transportation mode shared among multiple passengers—has the potential to accelerate transportation electrification, air quality, and greenhouse gas reduction goals, meet the needs of underserved communities that most lack mobility access, and advance broader mobility equity goals. CLEE’s report, Electric Shared Mobility: California Lessons Learned for Equity in Program Design, highlights examples of electric shared mobility...
CONTINUE READING“Salt Lakes in Crisis: Legal Responses to Ecological Catastrophes”
Upcoming U.C. Davis Law Review Symposium To Provide Interdisciplinary Focus On Threatened Western U.S. Lakes
On Friday, September 20th, the student-run U.C. Davis Law Review will host a most timely conference examining an environmental crisis facing many of the American West's iconic "terminal lakes." That term refers to lakes that have no natural outlet. For many years, protracted droughts and human diversions from freshwater rivers and streams feeding those lakes have combined to reduce lake levels dramatically and significantly increase their salinity (i.e., salt co...
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