Planning a Green Recovery
Don’t let the opportunity for a green stimulus go to waste.
The economy crashed during the lockdown. Although a recovery has begun, government action will probably be needed to sustain it. We should seize this opportunity to make progress on sustainability. It’s hard to know the long-term economic impact of the pandemic. As Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Schiller has said, “Big events like a pandemic have the potential to leave behind a trail of disruption. They can create social discord, reduce people’s willingn...
CONTINUE READINGThe Mystery of McConnell’s Litigation Shield
Why is he investing so much in something so draconian and so unnecessary?
As part of their proposed stimulus package, Senators John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell introduced a bill that gives almost complete immunity protection to businesses that fail to take precautions against the coronavirus. It’s called the “Safe to Work Act,” but really should be called the “Work at Your Own Risk Act.” McConnell says he won’t bring a stimulus bill to the floor without it. The McConnell immunity shield is truly draconian. It creates a whole seri...
CONTINUE READINGWater right permitting options for groundwater recharge: Avoiding unintended consequences
by Kate Fritz and Nell Green Nylen
Efforts to boost groundwater recharge are critical to making California’s limited, and increasingly volatile, water resources go further. Recharge is playing a growing role in maintaining groundwater as an effective drought reserve and in slowing or reversing the effects of years of unsustainable groundwater pumping. But implementing recharge projects is not easy. Water managers face a range of hurdles. Even with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) on...
CONTINUE READINGElection 2020: State Legislatures
The Outlook for State Climate Policy Might Improve
The key political races aren't just about the White House or Congress. Control of state legislatures will also be important in shaping climate and energy policy -- not to mention their ultimate effect on the composition of the U.S. House due to redistricting. One of my themes is the importance of state government to climate policy. The sad fact is that the political parties have opposing views on climate change, somewhat ameliorated because renewable energy has so...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger John Graham: California Court Decision Will Affect Future Use of Carbon Offsets to Mitigate Emissions of Development
The California Court of Appeal Rules San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan Violates CEQA
The challenge to San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan (“CAP”) in Golden Door has been closely watched by many interested in the use of carbon offsets to mitigate GHG impacts in California. Simply put, carbon offsets are mechanisms that reflect off-site GHG reductions—from activities like reforestation—that can, in some cases, compensate for a project’s GHG emissions. Litigation over San Diego County’s CAP has lasted years; on June 12, the Court of Appeal...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Litigation 2020
Here’s the state of play and some thoughts about the future.
Trump Administration has been a fertile source of litigation. With the election only about three months away, this seems like a good time to see how things stand in climate-related case. In a nutshell, climate litigation has been a growth industry under Trump, and the Administration has done poorly in court. The Current State of Play Types of Lawsuits The Sabin Center at Columbia maintains a database of U.S. climate litigation, which gives an overall sense of what t...
CONTINUE READINGHow To Ensure A More Sustainable Supply Chain For Electric Vehicle Batteries
New CLEE & NRGI Report Launch Today & 9am PT Webinar
CLEE and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) are pleased to release today the new report "Sustainable Drive, Sustainable Supply: Priorities to Improve the Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chain." The report identifies key challenges and solutions to ensure battery supply chain sustainability through a multi-stakeholder approach, based on our outreach to experts in the field. The global transition from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to battery electric ...
CONTINUE READINGWasting Away in Methaneville
Another Trump rollback gets slapped down in court.
A week ago, a federal district court overturned yet another ill-conceived rollback by the Trump Administration. The case, California v. Bernhardt, involved releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The legal flaws in the rollback by the Bureau of Land Management, are all too typical of the Administration’s work product. The Administration has repeatedly lost in court because an agency failed to do its homework. A little background: The Obama Administration had i...
CONTINUE READINGPlanet Earth as Desert Island: “Lord of the Flies” or “Gilligan’s Island”?
Or in more technical terms, the Tragedy of the Commons? Or its inverse?
Lord of the Flies is a memorable novel about a group of English schoolboys who are marooned on a desert island. They quickly descend into savagery and violence. The book can be seen as a parable of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s view that human life in a state of nature is short, nasty, and brutish. But there was actually a real shipwreck a number of years after the book was written, and that’s not what happened to the marooned boys at all. In 1965, six boys a...
CONTINUE READINGTrump Administration’s Court Challenge to California-Quebec Cap-and-Trade Agreement Again Rejected
U.S. District Court Rejects Feds' Latest Constitutional Attack on California's Climate Change Initiative
Three strikes and you're out. That adage, particularly timely given Major League Baseball's belated start of its 2020 season this week, is just as apt when it comes to litigation as it is to our nation's pastime. For the second time in four months, U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb has rejected a constitutional challenge the Trump Administration has pursued against the State of California and, specifically, California's Air Resources Board (CARB). In hi...
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