The Economic Impact of AB 32 on California
New study suggests that the economic impact of cutting carbon is modest.
What is the economic impact of California’s climate change regulations? Will they reduce actual emissions or just shift them out-of-state? A new study by Resources for the Future addresses an important part of the puzzle. Reasearchers at RFF modeled the effect of compliance costs of $10/ton or $22/ton of CO2 on highly energy-intensive industries such as glass bottle manufacturing, poultry processing, paperboard mills, and steel manufacturing. The models assume that...
CONTINUE READINGTrump, Sanders Voters and Climate Change
If you need even one reason to vote for Clinton, climate change ought to suffice
I don't pretend to understand the allure of Donald Trump. I am an unabashed supporter of Hillary Clinton. I appreciate that many people I know and respect are Bernie Sanders supporters. I am hoping that, once Clinton officially becomes the Democratic candidate for President, Sanders supporters will work hard to elect Clinton as President, even if their motive for doing so is to defeat Donald Trump. Staying home on election day or voting for Trump to stir thin...
CONTINUE READINGReinventing Parks & Rec.
We need to protect city parks, not just rural wilderness.
"The few green havens that are public parks" is a phrase from the Supreme Court's opinion in the Overton Park case. The case involved a plan to build a highway through the middle of a major park in Memphis. The Court put a heavy burden on the government to justify the project: "The few green havens that are public parks were not to be lost unless there were truly unusual factors present in a particular case or the cost or community disruption resulting from alterna...
CONTINUE READINGThis April Was the Cruelest Month (Or at Least the Hottest)
Once again, a global temperature record is broken.
For the seventh month in a row, the average global temperature set a new monthly record going back at least 136 years. Rutherford Hayes was President back then, the first electric street light was turned on, and Gladstone beat Disraeli. We've had 24 Presidents since then. In other words, that was a long time ago. As you may recall, 2015 was the warmest year on record, breaking the record set by 2014. This year seems to be on track to break the record again. ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Fines SoCal Gas for Corroded Pipe Casings
The CPUC issued the fine after finding dozens of violations
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a citation for violations of a federal regulation on Southern California Gas Co. (SoCal Gas) totaling $2.25 million. The citation is based on forty-five violations of a federal regulation requiring that operators "take prompt remedial action to correct any deficiencies indicated by" external corrosion monitoring. According to the May 3, 2016 Investigation Report filed by the CPUC Safety and Enforcement Division (S...
CONTINUE READINGIs Protecting Public Health Now a Partisan Issue?
Congress's failure to deal with the Zika threat is a symptom of a bigger problem.
Congress seems to be unable to come up with funding for an effort to combat the zika virus. Instead, congressional leaders told the government to use existing funding, so it has been forced to divert hundreds of millions of dollars from fighting ebola. (You remember that Congress was completely frenzied about the risk of ebola in 2014-15. But Ebola is so last year.) There are efforts to forge a compromise, but no one knows if they will succeed. Part of what's...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Justice and Sustainability
Over two billion people lack access to modern energy sources.
Energy justice is an unfamiliar concept to most people, but it addresses a crucial problem. A new book by Lakshman Guruswamy addresses some of the key facts: About a third of the world's population -- between 2 and 2.5 billion people -- primarily rely on household burning of wood, coal, or other materials like dung for cooking. The price they pay is great, he tells us: "indoor air pollution that is presently responsible for millions of premature deaths . . . due to ...
CONTINUE READINGFinding Least-Conflict Lands For Solar PV In California’s San Joaquin Valley — And Beyond
New CLEE report identifies 470,000 acres of ideal land for solar PV, with 4pm webex briefing with state officials
To achieve California and the post-Paris world's climate goals, we're going to need a whole lot more renewable energy. Given current market trends, much of it will come from solar photovoltaic (PV), which has gotten incredibly cheap in the last few years. But deploying these solar panels at utility scale will mean major changes to our landscapes. And that means conflicts with traditional environmental and agricultural values. Here in California, these conflicts could ...
CONTINUE READINGAppointing Guardians to Represent Future Generations
Could an old property procedure be a model for climate-related litigation?
From time to time, there is talk about giving standing to future generations. Although this is an idea whose time may not have come in the U.S., it’s important to know that the law has for many, many years allowed appointment of lawyers to represent future individuals. Typically, this is a procedure that is used in estate or trust cases. In California, this procedure is a matter of statute. Section 373.5 of the Civil Procedure Code provides: "If . . . a person o...
CONTINUE READINGShould California Recover More Energy From Municipal Solid Waste?
New Berkeley Law report explores policy options, with KALW radio show discussion tonight at 7pm
Every year, Californians send about 30 million tons of trash to landfills. While the state's residents do their part to reduce, reuse and recycle, that's still a whole lot of garbage. It's not only a land use issue, it's a climate change issue: as landfill waste decays, it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Many other countries and states are using energy recovery technologies to turn that trash into power. Mostly it's done by heating and gasifying the material...
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