Energy Innovation and the Law @ UCLA
A full-day UCLA Law Review symposium on Friday, November 1
The UCLA Law Review is holding a symposium next Friday, November 1 – Toward a Clean Energy Future: Powering Innovation Through Law. Leading scholars from around the country will be at UCLA School of Law for the day to discuss innovative energy technologies, international energy issues, the challenge of new energy technology diffusion, and the role of law in facilitating a clean energy future. These topics could not be more important or timely. If you are in ...
CONTINUE READINGNew Standing Barriers Erected for Federal Court Climate Change Litigation
Recent Ninth Circuit Decision Likely to Spell the End of Much Citizen Suit Litigation Over Climate Change in Federal Courts
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court's famously ruled in Massachusetts v. USEPA that petitioners in that case had standing to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court to challenge EPA's failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Observers then could have been forgiven for thinking that this ruling flung open prospectively the federal courthouse door to climate change litigation. Subsequent events would have proven that view sadly ...
CONTINUE READINGELQ’s Annual Review issue now available online
Every year, Ecology Law Quarterly publishes its Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resource Law. The latest version is now available at ELQ's web site. Check out these articles from the issue. You'll find they cover a tremendous amount of ground in a way that is both educational and entertaining. And at the ELQ site you'll also find "In Brief" casenotes, a book review, and the latest from Ecology Law Currents. Nathaniel Johnson, Sackett's Limit Katie Schaef...
CONTINUE READINGThe Climate Gamble
Paul Krugman has a review of a new book by William Nordhaus about climate policy. By way of preface, I should say that Nordhaus is not particularly popular with environmentalists, who have generally considered him as too conservative in his policy recommendations. Nordhaus does, however, more or less define the mainstream view -- he's very well respected and has been modeling the economics of climate change longer than anyone else. So Nordhaus's curr...
CONTINUE READINGAir Pollution in China Shuts Down City of 11 Million
The airpocalypse is back. What should Chinese leaders do about it?
On Sunday, the start of the heating season in northern China brought the “airpocalypse” back with a vengeance (although some might say it never left). Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province and home to 11 million people, registered fine particulate (PM2.5) pollution levels beyond 500 on the Chinese Air Quality Index, which is considered hazardous to human health. Measurements in some parts of the city reached 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter. As a result,...
CONTINUE READINGPlaying Chicken With Food Safety
Food safety doesn't get the attention it deserves from regulators. Case in point: the latest Salmonella outbreak.
Food safety is something of a step-child of U.S. regulation. The public obviously cares about it, but it lacks the kind of attention from advocacy groups that the environment gets. The results have not been pretty. Food safety is divided between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (for meats and poultry). Keep in mind that USDA's main mission is promoting the agriculture industry, so you have to wonder how z...
CONTINUE READINGHelping to Break The Junk Food Habit
Some of the methods used to regulate alcohol could help with junk food.
A recent study shows that rats find oreos addictive -- they like eating them just as much as they like cocaine. And they definitely preferred them to healthier foods like rice cakes. People seem to have the same difficulty in resisting junk food as rats. What's to be done? A recent paper by RAND researchers suggests that relatively modest regulations could help. The model they have in mind is based on alcohol regulation. The idea would not be to ban jun...
CONTINUE READINGA Big Step for the Montreal Protocol
Parties to the Montreal Protocol will hold their 25th meeting next week in Bangkok. In addition to all their normal business related to the continuing phasedown of ozone-depleting substances (ODS), parties at this meeting will consider a huge step, in the form of proposals to amend the Protocol to phase down Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Proponents of this step have been working hard to promote it, and have secured widespread support beyond the sponsoring delegations, i...
CONTINUE READINGSenator Vitter celebrated the shutdown of the EPA
I’ve written elsewhere about how some elements of the Tea Party and the Republican party have made clear that their goal is not just “reform” of environmental laws, but the elimination of all environmental regulations. Dan has noted the same point in looking at Ron Paul’s campaign platform in the last presidential election. Here’s another example. Republican Senator David Vitter has developed a top ten list of the benefits from the government shutdown. ...
CONTINUE READINGCEQA Reform 2013 Holds Promise for Improving the Environment
Despite grumblings, the new law contains significant victories for infill development and urban investment
Governor Brown recently signed into law this year’s version of “CEQA reform,” which as Eric noted was decidedly stripped down from what it could have been. SB 743 (Steinberg) got a lot of negative attention for giving the Sacramento Kings basketball arena proponents accelerated environmental review and immunity from injunctive relief unless the project is found to jeopardize public health, safety, or archaeological resources. In exchange for these benefits, the...
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