The Trump Administration takes on the International Maritime Organization
International Maritime Organization
Once again, the new US thumbs its nose at international consensus.
Despite its constant chaos, the Trump administration is at base quite consistent in its approach to both international law and climate change -- it seeks to minimize international cooperation while maximizing greenhouse gas emissions. No surprise, then, that the Secretaries of State, Energy, Commerce and Transportation last month issued a joint statement critical of the International Maritime Organization's "Net-Zero Framework" aimed at achieving net zero GHG emis...
CONTINUE READINGThe Failed Effort to Protect Workers from Toxics: A Labor Day Reflection
The OSHA law called for rigorous regulation. It never happened.
Labor Day began as a celebration of workers’ rights, which makes this a good occasion to ask what went wrong with workers’ right to be free from toxics in the workplace. On paper, federal law provides powerful protection but that law has never been seriously implemented. Courts and industry opposition deserve some of the blame, but probably less important than deindustrialization and the decline of the American labor movement. Here’s the puzzle: Congress manda...
CONTINUE READINGFederalism Is For Suckers, Part The Millionth
Donald Trump's latest constitutional rewriting puts the lie to venerable constitutional scholarship
Here’s a good legal Rule Of Thumb: whenever anyone makes a federalism argument concerning any dispute, do not take them seriously. It’s a mug’s game. The Venn Diagram of “people who argue for federalism” and “people who lack control over the federal government” is pretty much a perfect circle. And the positions will completely flip depending on the political correlation of forces. And no one, of course, epitomizes this better than the current occu...
CONTINUE READINGHow to Dissent? Learn American History
LA Public Library
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
It sounds cliché, but when you face a crisis, it helps to remember times that you’ve overcome adversity. That’s the power of history. And it’s one of the reasons I think the new PBS documentary “Clearing the Air: The War on Smog” is crucial to share right now. In the 1940s, dark, smoky clouds crept over Los Angeles. People covered their eyes and wore gas masks to social functions. Visibility was so bad that cars crashed and LAX was shut down. Concerned ...
CONTINUE READINGWhy are California’s Zero-Emission Truck Standards Under Attack?
They are highly effective, as CLEE’s new Factsheet series on Zero-Emission Trucks documents.
The world of zero-emission trucks is at a pivotal moment. On one hand, the technology is rapidly advancing, and manufacturers are producing a growing number of zero-emission truck models in Europe, China, and here in California. Yet on the other hand, this clean transition is facing significant political and legal challenges from the U.S. federal government. In June 2025, President Trump signed into law a congressional resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) ...
CONTINUE READINGCan California Try Again with Vehicle Pollution Limits?
A new Sixth Circuit decision provides encouragement.
In May, Congress effectively killed the most recent efforts by California to clean up its vehicle fleet. Although many people seem to have assumed the contrary, this may not be the end of the road for California regulators. A new court of appeals decision is an encouraging signal that California may be able try again when the political forces in DC are less militantly anti-environmental. Background. The issue involves two different laws. The first is the Clean...
CONTINUE READINGRight-wing populist environmentalism?
The future of environmentalism may include a right-wing, populist strain that is heavily NIMBY
While there is a lot of focus on left-wing NIMBYs in public discourse, there’s also a lot of right-wing NIMBY mobilization too. For instance, the conservative California city of Huntington Beach is leading the resistance to state efforts to require upzoning to facilitate housing. Conservative rural communities are often the locus of opposition to both wind power and solar power development. One could dismiss this opposition as motivated more by culture war positi...
CONTINUE READINGTwo more recent NEPA studies
These studies have better methodological approaches, and highlight the ways in which NEPA does (and does not) matter for renewable energy
In a prior blog post, I criticized a recent NEPA study from the Breakthrough Institute for some key methodological limitations. Two more studies of NEPA have since come out from Resources for the Future that I want to highlight because I think they have stronger methodological foundations. There are still important limits on what these studies can and can not say about NEPA, but they do give us some important insights into how NEPA works on the ground. The two NEP...
CONTINUE READINGLeveraging Cap-And-Trade Proceeds for Long-Term Utility Bill Savings and Pollution Reduction
State leaders have an opportunity to expand the benefits with cap-and-trade reauthorization.
California’s decades-long role as a climate action pioneer is facing serious headwinds. While the Trump administration and its allies have launched a full-scale attack on clean technologies, state leaders are also wrestling with an electorate now more focused on lowering prices than environmental protection. Energy costs stand in the middle. This dynamic is playing out right now as state leaders debate the post-2030 future of the state’s cap-and-trade program, whi...
CONTINUE READINGHow We Teach Environmental Law is Changing
UCLA Law faculty talk about how they are teaching environmental law differently in challenging times.
Environmental law is still relatively new and keeps changing all the time. After all, the field of environmental law didn’t really exist in the U.S. until pollution fears in the 1950s and ’60s spurred political activism. From 1970 to 1978, Congress passed more than a dozen of the most important environmental laws by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Over the years, the field has evolved wildly due to technology, new case law, scientific findings, global wa...
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