Ninth Circuit takes up NRDC v. Salazar en banc
The Ninth Circuit today issued an order granting rehearing en banc in NRDC v. Salazar, meaning that an 11-member panel will now reconsider the 3-judge panel decision issued last July. (Hat tip: Endangered Species and Wetland Report.) This is very good news, because the (split) panel decision was wrong in important respects. (Full disclosure -- I signed onto an amicus brief in favor of rehearing en banc.) Of course the en banc court won't necessarily reverse, but it will...
CONTINUE READINGCan Universities Be The Future Home of Environmental Journalism?
Consider me somewhat skeptical of the arguments, well-presented by Jayni, that The New York Times' killing of the Green blog will somehow enhance the paper's environmental coverage. It reminds me a little of the attempts of law schools to teach ethics not with a specific class but with the suffusion method: it's an easy way to avoid doing what you don't want to do. And there are grounds for a strong suspicion as to why the Times no longer wants to run the blog or pay...
CONTINUE READINGAn ELQ twofer
My apologies to the folks at ELQ -- I missed their last publication date. (Hint: please send one of us a heads up when an issue comes out if you want it posted on LP.) So here are links to the articles in the latest two issues, Volume 39 issues 3 and 4. Of course, the latest from both ELQ and Ecology Law Currents is always available direct from ELQ's website. ELQ Volume 39 Issue 3 Hope Babcock, Can Vermont Put the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle? A Test of Congressional...
CONTINUE READINGA Great New Appointment: Edith Ramirez as FTC Chair
President Obama has appointed Edith Ramirez to chair the Federal Trade Commission; since she already serves on the FTC, this thankfully does not require Senate confirmation. It's a terrific appointment. I have known Edith for about 15 years now; we served together on the board of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, one of the best legal services organizations in the country. I have always been impressed with her intelligence and judgment in a wide variet...
CONTINUE READINGNew York Times Says Farewell to “Green Blog” and Environment Desk
A few days ago, the New York Times cancelled its “Green Blog,” dedicated to environmental and energy news. The Times told readers to look for environmental policy news on the “Caucus blog,” dedicated to politics, and energy technology news on the “Bits blog,” dedicated to the business of technology. The demise of the Green Blog came less than two months after the Times eliminated its environment desk – created in 2009 – and reassigned the writers ...
CONTINUE READINGLaw 2050 — a new “legal futurism” blog
JB Ruhl at Vanderbilt University has launched a new blog called Law 2050. He describes the blog as "a forum for envisioning the future of law, legal practice, and legal education," or in shorthand "legal futurism." That's obviously not limited to environmental law, but his examples (not to mention the fact that JB has been writing primarily about natural resources and environmental law for the many years he's been an academic) make it clear that natural resources and env...
CONTINUE READINGGina McCarthy to be nominated as EPA head
As predicted by Cara recently in this space, it's being widely reported (for example here) this morning that Gina McCarthy, currently EPA's Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, is Obama's pick to succeed Lisa Jackson as EPA Administrator. Cara sees this appointment as a good thing for EPA's climate policy efforts and efforts to work with states like California, which of course is playing its own important role in climate policy. I agree. I would ...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law and the Two-Year Law Degree
There's been talk recently about requiring lawyers to have only two years of law school, maybe with a follow-on year of apprenticeship. If this change takes place, will students still be able to study specialized courses like environmental law? For instance, to get an environmental law certificate at Berkeley, at student needs to take six courses in environmental law or related areas. What happens to specialized courses like these in a "two-year degree" world? Does...
CONTINUE READINGThe Future of Los Angeles and Climate Change
On Wednesday Night, I will participate in a KPCC discussion focused on climate change's impacts on Southern California. The rest of the panel includes Jerry R. Schubel and my friend Jonathan Parfrey. What do I want to talk about? I wouldn't mind promoting my Climatopolis but here is a sketch of my thoughts; We control our destiny but we need a new zoning code that encourages densification in safer, more temperate parts of the metro area. Put bluntly, Sa...
CONTINUE READINGDid the Supreme Court just shut the courthouse door on environmental plaintiffs?
It’s not an environmental law case, but the Supreme Court’s decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International has a lot of environmental law folks talking. Clapper was a lawsuit that sought to challenge the constitutionality of a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allowed the government to monitor a range of communications by foreign citizens outside of the United States. The plaintiffs in Clapper were US citizens who argued that FISA s...
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