CEQA and Local Land Use Regulations: Shakedown Street
Local Government Discretion Has Powerful Political Support
Eric's post the other day about CEQA and local land use regulation states an important and often-overlooked truth: environmental review can only hold up a project if it is discretionary. If local land use regulations state clearly what a developer can and cannot do, then no amount of environmental review could change a decision, and so CEQA does not apply. Eric and his research term conclude that we shouldn't blame CEQA when local governments could get rid of the problem...
CONTINUE READINGModernizing 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. They were supplemented by other power plants when needed to meet load (customer demand). All the power flowed from these central power plants and was inst...
CONTINUE READINGJumping 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 can impose measures on a each plant, but not measures that go beyond the fence line like requiring more use of renewable energy of a c...
CONTINUE READINGLet’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 says that a carbon tax is needed, but [t]he Baker-Schultz plan also includes a waiver that would let oil companies and other e...
CONTINUE READINGComments 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 the support and direction of Bill Weeks at the Conservation Law Clinic at Indiana University. B...
CONTINUE READINGA Potentially Important Climate Change Court Ruling in the Netherlands
A Dutch environmental organization surprisingly won its novel climate change lawsuit when the government appealed.
Although I am in the midst of a series of blog posts (1, 2, 3) regarding novel technologies in the recent special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I take a brief detour to report on a court ruling in the Netherlands regarding climate change. Although I am skeptical of its impact in the case at hand, the ruling might have significant long term and indirect influence, in the Netherlands and elsewhere. The environmental advocacy organizati...
CONTINUE READINGGetting Kavanaugh’s Vote to Uphold Climate Change Regulation
Environmentalists Have a New Secret Weapon
Not for nothing was Brett Kavanaugh referred to as "Voldemort" by Center for Biological Diversity counsel Bill Snape: he is quite hostile to environmental regulation and will freely rewrite statutes to constrict EPA authority. But now environmentalists have a new ace up their sleeves: The price of beer could rise sharply this century, and it has nothing to do with trends in craft brewing. Instead, a new study says beer prices could double, on average, because of the pri...
CONTINUE READINGThe Wild & Scenic Rivers Act Turns 50
Celebrating a Half Century of Protecting America's Rivers--& Hoping for More River Conservation Ahead
1968 was an especially tumultuous year in modern American history. The nation endured the assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; then-President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection due to growing public dissatisfaction with the government's conduct of the Vietnam War; and protests and riots consumed Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C. and many other American cities. So it was in stark contrast and a most welcome develop...
CONTINUE READING“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 aground, according to Politico. This outcome tells us something about the gap between Trump’s promises of committing regulator...
CONTINUE READINGCitations for environmental and energy law professors 2018
The most-cited environmental and energy law professors in 2013-17
Brian Leiter at Chicago is again doing one of his occasional series identifying the top cited legal scholars in a range of substantive areas. One of the lists he did covered public law scholars including environmental law– however, his list includes a number of top administrative law scholars who do not focus on environmental and energy law. As I did the last time Leiter posted these totals, I thought it might be helpful to our readers to have a list that is focuse...
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