Some Unsolicited Advice for Tom Steyer
There were a number of efforts by wealthy individuals and/or Super PACs to affect the midterm election results. Most relevant to this blog, Tom Steyer used tens of millions of his own funds to support candidates that he felt would be more supportive of efforts to address climate change. After the election, the media portrayed Steyer’s efforts as a waste of money: Only a small minority of the candidates Steyer supported were elected, and his efforts to get “climate...
CONTINUE READINGA Ray of Hope [Breaking News]
President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a major deal on climate change this morning. As summarized by the Washington Post, China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged in the far-reaching agreement to cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible. It also set a daunting goal of increasing the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 percent of the country’s energy mix by 2030. Obama announced a target t...
CONTINUE READING“You’re Just Not My Type (of error)”
Most people find statistics off-putting -- who wants to look at a bunch of numbers? And Statistics courses, which are required for students in many majors, are usually viewed as a painful box to check. But when you put aside the numbers and the technicalities, statisticians also have some simple yet powerful concepts. One of them is the distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 errors. I guess you can tell from the less-than-gripping labels why many students don't f...
CONTINUE READINGUsing Textualism Against Itself
Industry has come up with a Scalia-like argument to fight the proposed climate regulations for existing power plants. The problem arises because Congress passed two different versions of section 111(d) without realizing it. The Senate version clearly gives EPA the authority to regulate CO2 under this provision. But opponents of regulation argue that the House version is controlling and that its language doesn't allow EPA to regulate. The reason, they say, is t...
CONTINUE READINGTime to Vote! (A Gentle Reminder from the Friendly Folks at Legal Planet)
If there's one thing that everyone connected with this site agree on -- even our resident climate denial troll -- it's that environment and energy issues are important. If you're on one side, public health, nature, and the very future of the planet are at stake. If you're on the other side, it's crushing economic burdens by power-mad bureaucrats that need to be blocked. Either way, the stakes are high. And there are a lot of close elections out there, where extra...
CONTINUE READINGThe Future of Conservation
Earlier this year I wrote critically about a New York Times op-ed that proposed making the restrictions on development in wilderness areas more flexible in order to allow for adaptation to climate change. This week the Times published what I think is a much more helpful op-ed on the topic of how we should address the challenges of climate change’s impacts on the protection, preservation, and conservation of protected areas and endangered species and ecosystems. The ...
CONTINUE READINGFive Governor Races to Watch
The Senate races are getting a lot of attention this year. But what happens in statehouses also matters. Most directly, it matters for the folks who live there. But governorships are often proving grounds for politicians who later emerge on the national scene. Today, I’ll focus on a handful of races that look like they could go either way: Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, and Kansas. What are the environmental stakes in these races? As usual, to avoid the risk ...
CONTINUE READINGMono Lake at 20: Past, Present and Future
Symposium in Sacramento, November 17
Please join us as the UC Berkeley School of Law, with stakeholders in the Mono Lake Cases, convenes a symposium in Sacramento on November 17, 2014, to mark the 20th anniversary of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Decision 1631. Panel presentations feature an cast of thought leaders, including: Marty Adams (Los Angeles Department of Water & Power) Tom Birmingham (Westlands WD; former counsel to Los Angeles Department of Water & Power) Marth...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Does the High Profile of Environmental Issues in this Election Mean for the Future?
Environmental issues have been surprisingly visible in this campaign – nearly every Senate candidate gives them prominent attention. The New York Times reports that they are also the third most common topic for political ads in this cycle. The evidence they report shows, not surprisingly, that coal and oil are big issues in key states: Kentucky and West Virginia for coal; Alaska and Louisiana for oil. But energy and environment are also big concerns in other stat...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Is An “Environmental” Lawyer?
No side of the profession should have a monopoly on the term
My post last week on renaming "environmental" law to "resources" law greatly peeved a number of private bar attorneys, who thought I was impugning their entire side of the practice. My post clearly played into some longstanding tension and defensiveness (no pun intended) about this issue. These attorneys believe that even though they may represent polluting clients, they are able to do good work for the environment by steering their clients to comply more fully with appl...
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