What 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...
CONTINUE READINGHappy Birthday, Yosemite–and California’s State Parks System
The Core of Yosemite National Park, & California's First State Park, Were Created 150 Years Ago
2014 marks the 150th anniversary of the creation of what we now know as Yosemite National Park. It's also the sesquicentennial anniversary of California's State Parks System. The two events are, in fact, inextricably related. And how they occurred is a noteworthy and truly inspirational story. In 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, a movement swelled to preserve a pair of mysterious and beautiful sites in California that members of Congress and President Ab...
CONTINUE READINGTime To Rename “Environmental” Law
The label is misleading and inaccurate
Every year in October, the California State Bar Environmental Law Section hosts a three-day conference on the outskirts of Yosemite, attracting prominent lawyers, advocates, and public officials from all over the state. This past weekend, at the traditional Saturday night banquet, famed climate activist Bill McKibben was the speaker. Unfortunately at the last minute he couldn't attend in person, but in his videotaped remarks, he commented on all the good things Californi...
CONTINUE READINGThe Ebola Panic
Some politicians encourage panic about a small outbreak in Texas, while thousands in Africa are dying.
The National Lampoon once put out a mock edition of a newspaper from the fictional city of Dacron, Ohio. There was a screaming headline reading: TWO DACRON WOMEN MISSING. A much smaller subheading read: Japan destroyed by tidal wave. We are now seeing something similar in the U.S. reaction to Ebola. So far, only three cases have been diagnosed in this country, with one death. But Ebola has killed 4,546 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, over 80% of ...
CONTINUE READINGAfter November, the Deluge?
What will the Republicans do if they take control of the Senate? Will this be Armageddon for Obama's environmental policies, as both Democrats and Republicans insist? The truth is likely to be less dramatic, though still bad from an environmental perspective. Greenwire had a very interesting piece about that on Friday. Both Republican and Democratic politicians have reasons to exaggerate this in order to motivate their bases. But the Greenwire article has some very ...
CONTINUE READINGShould Environmental News Coverage Be In The Science Section?
A whiles back I wrote about how the New York Times’ environmental coverage had been in decline. The public editor at the Times has a new article stating that environmental coverage has recently increased substantially. I think that is a great thing. But I want to focus on another element of the public editor’s article. In her article, the public editor notes that there is some controversy over the fact that, in general, the Times’ environmental coverage is place...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s New Groundwater Law: An Interactive Timeline
What are the major deadlines for local groundwater management agencies, and when can—or must—state agencies act?
Many (including Legal Planet's own Rick Frank) have examined the pros and cons of California's new locally-focused groundwater management law. Such analyses will continue to be critically important as state and local players move forward with the nitty-gritty of actual implementation, and the legislation's practical, on-the-ground (and under-the-ground) implications become clearer. In this post, however, my goal is to simply lay out the relationships between the ...
CONTINUE READINGPolitical systems and environmental law
The other day I posted about Australia’s repeal of its carbon tax. Australia is not the only country that is going through some retrenchment in environmental law. In Canada, the government made some substantial alterations to the requirements for environmental review for government projects (reducing the scope of the requirement and limiting it to certain major projects); it also reduced the coverage of federal protection for fisheries and fish habitat. On the other ha...
CONTINUE READINGLessons From an Epidemic
Ebola's natural reservoirs are animals, if only because human hosts die to too quickly. Outbreaks tend to occur in locations where changes in landscapes have brought animals and humans into closer contact. Thus, there is considerable speculation about whether ecological factors might be related to the current outbreak. (See here). At this point, at least, we don't really know. Still, it's clear that outbreaks of diseases like ebola strengthen the case for forest ...
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