Search Results for: NEPA
U.S. Supreme Court Grants Review in Pacific Rivers Council Case
Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a major forestry and NEPA case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: U.S. Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, No. 12-623. The case will be argued and decided in the Court’s next (2013-14) Term. The issues the justices have agreed to consider in Pacific Rivers Council are threefold: …
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CONTINUE READINGTakings, Standing, and Those Nasty Neighbors
Most lawyers reading this page are familiar with Nollan v. Calif. Coastal Comm’n, the 1987 Supreme Court case holding that exactions in exchange for land use permits must show an “essential nexus” between the purported harm generated by the permit and aims of the exaction. (More precisely, Nollan gave heightened scrutiny to finding that nexus.). …
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CONTINUE READINGOf Mollusks and Men: The Wilderness Act and Drakes Bay Oyster Company
The debate over Drakes Bay Oyster Company’s continued operation within the Point Reyes National Seashore created two unlikely foes: environmentalists in favor of transitioning the land to wilderness, and supporters of local, organic food and a longstanding family business. The San Francisco Chronicle aptly termed it a “legal and philosophical slugfest.” The door seems to …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest bloggers from Berkeley Law Environmental Law Society: Contextualizing Secretary Salazar’s Recent Decision on Oyster Farming at Point Reyes
NOTE: This post is by Legal Planet guest bloggers Nell Green Nylen, Heather Welles, Dan Carlin, Elisabeth Long, and Mary Loum, all members of UC Berkeley’s Environmental Law Society during the 2011–12 academic year. (See more details about the work of these law students and new lawyers at the end of the post.) If you …
CONTINUE READINGCan “Social Risk Assessment” protect China’s environment?
I’ve just returned from a month in Qingdao, China, so this story in the New York Times caught my eye. China’s new leadership has announced that it will require a social risk assessment before any major industrial project can be begun. The idea is to forestall the increasingly violent environmental protests that have caused the …
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CONTINUE READINGPACE Court Ruling Now Final: So What’s the Future of PACE?
Federal Judge Claudia Wilken, who has been presiding over the West Coast lawsuit to overturn federal housing policy and restore residential PACE energy financing programs, made her August ruling final today. As you may recall, Judge Wilken ruled in August that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) would have to pursue a notice-and-comment rulemaking on …
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CONTINUE READING40 years hasn’t taught some agencies much
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. You would think that by now federal agencies would have the NEPA process pretty well down. After all, it’s been the law since 1970, requiring that every federal agency prepare an environmental impact statement before committing itself to environmentally harmful actions. And it’s not that hard to do. Agencies just have to …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law in Canada
Americans (especially liberals) often have a warm and fuzzy vision of our neighbors to the north as a kinder, gentler version of the United States. (Remember this map after the 2004 election?) But when it comes to environmental issues, that really isn’t the case. The conservative Canadian government led by Prime Minister Harper has recently introduced its …
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CONTINUE READINGLos Angeles’ Expo Line: A Cautionary Tale For Building Rail
This weekend, the long awaited Expo Light Rail Line will finally open in Los Angeles, connecting the traffic-choked Westside with the rest of the city’s rail network, more than two decades after the region’s first modern rail line opened. The relatively short light rail line (8.6 miles, 12 stations) took an absurdly long amount of …
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CONTINUE READINGCould standing save CEQA?
One of the recent complaints about CEQA has been that the statute has been abused by various parties who have no interest in protecting the environment, but instead are simply interested in either (a) raising costs for competitors or (b) using the threat of CEQA litigation to extract payments from project proponents. Various horror stories …
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