Halftime Report: Environmental Bills Moving Forward
The UCLA Emmett Institute is tracking California environmental bills. In a year of tough budget choices, here are the notable bills that cleared Sacramento's first big legislative deadline.
Legislators reached the first deadline of the 2023-2024 legislative season last week—passage of bills out of their house of origin. As the name implies, this refers to Assembly bills working their way through the Assembly, and Senate bills moving through the Senate, culminating with floor votes which concluded last Friday, May 24th. This period is marked as the crossover, where the bills that passed off the floor of their house of origin, move to the other house fo...
CONTINUE READINGFinancing and Investment Strategies for an Equitable Clean Mobility Transition
New CLEE / Prospect Silicon Valley report outlines top strategies from a series of expert convenings
The transition to 100 percent zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales by 2035 will require massive investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure throughout California and in other states that have adopted the same phaseout targets. A variety of structural barriers to charging access make California’s priority populations particularly reliant on public charging infrastructure to meet their ZEV needs. Ensuring that these Californians are included in and benefit from t...
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s War on Environmental Protection: A Chronology
Yes, there were over 100 environmental rollbacks. Here are the biggest.
As we face the possibility of another Trump Administration, it is worth remembering what he did the first time around. Some of us may have repressed the memory of Trump’s war against environmental protection in his previous term in office. Others may not have been following closely. As you can see below, Trump's campaign to purge America of environmental regulations — particularly those impacting the fossil fuel industry — was stern and unrelenting. 2017 February...
CONTINUE READINGEverywhere and Forever All at Once: PFAS and the Failures of Chemicals Regulation
Environmental law helped create a world awash in toxic chemicals. It's time to think about how regulation can operate as a form of green industrial policy for chemicals.
This post was originally published on the Law & Political Economy Blog as "How Environmental Law Created a World Awash in Toxic Chemicals." Earlier this spring, the Biden administration finalized two important rules targeting a small subset of so-called forever chemicals: one establishing drinking water standards for six such chemicals and the other designating two of the more prominent ones as hazardous substances under CERCLA (the Superfund Law). These che...
CONTINUE READINGDid the COVID Response Poison the Well for Climate Action?
Sadly, the answer may be yes, at least for one conspiracy-minded segment of the population.
One meme that seems to be popping up is that the “evils” of the COVID response reveal some dark reality behind climate policy. There’s obviously some kinship: public health responses to COVID and climate policy are both efforts to head off serious global risks — one that, in the case of COVID, has killed over a million Americans. But this doesn’t explain the conspiratorial overtones. The conspiratorial view of COVID policy popped up in a speech by Vice P...
CONTINUE READINGNew Report: Scoping the Public Health Impacts of Wildfire
A primer for stakeholders interested in the intersections of wildland fire and public health.
Wildfire smoke presents a population-wide health risk in California. Catastrophic wildfires are fueling complex and extensive public health impacts, including air pollution-related mortality and a growing toll on mental health. These risks result in hundreds of millions of dollars in estimated losses and carry stark environmental justice implications for vulnerable populations. At the same time, the policy landscape addressing this issue remains siloed on the state and f...
CONTINUE READINGNEPA in the Ninth
Can an agency just shortcut the whole process? The 9th Circuit says no.
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit decided a NEPA case that discusses two interesting issues. But what's most striking isn't what the court did discuss but what it didn't mention : the fact that last year's NEPA amendments speaks directly to one of those issues. Apparently the word that NEPA was extensively amended a year ago hasn't yet reached the federal courts. I'll start with some background on the case and then explain what the court did or didn't do. First, some ...
CONTINUE READINGHere’s the Most Important Climate Bill of 2024
The Farm Bill proposal being pushed by House Republicans cuts climate programs and boosts factory farms. Congress should listen to the hundreds of chefs who are calling for climate fixes.
Normally, you don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen. It spoils the broth, as the saying goes. But when it comes to debating, amending, and rewriting the U.S. Farm Bill, lawmakers in Congress need all the help they can get. Congress should listen to the hundreds of chefs and food industry pros who are asking them to include climate programs that help farmers implement sustainable practices and diversify supply chains. The Farm Bill, which is supposed to be r...
CONTINUE READINGImportant Progress Toward a Climate-Ready Grid
New transmission is crucial. This is how FERC is starting to address the problem.
We urgently need more transmission to accommodate renewable energy, increased energy demand, and grid resilience to climate disasters. Yet the transmission approval process has been badly broken, often favoring small projects that plump up utility profits but do little to address longterm or regional transmission needs. Last week, the government took steps to improve permitting for new transmission lines. These moves have been urgently needed. (Regrettably, someone el...
CONTINUE READINGFlorida Governor DeSantis’ Head-In-The-Sand Climate Change Policies
New Florida Law Strikes Term "Climate Change" From State Laws, Promotes Fossil Fuels & Rejects Renewable Energy Projects
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in coordination with an equally myopic and partisan Florida Legislature, has approved new state legislation (HB 1645) that eliminates the term "climate change" from numerous existing Florida statutes that former Republican Governor Charlie Crist signed into law in 2008. The legislation, which takes effect on July 1st, is not just symbolic: it also prohibits construction of wind turbines in Florida's offshore waters and repeals state ...
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