California High Speed Rail Slowed by Court Decisions
Judge rules the train needs a new business plan and project-level environmental review
California Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny dealt two setbacks to high speed rail yesterday that are likely to delay the project significantly. First, Judge Kenny ruled that the state committee that approved the disbursement of bond money for the project acted without sufficient evidence to justify the disbursal. California law empowers the High-Speed Passenger Train Finance Committee to authorize the release of $8 billion of the bond funds that voters approved...
CONTINUE READINGThe Significance of EPA’s Proposed Power Plant Standards
Although they won't have immediate impacts, EPA's proposed rules for new coal plants will indirectly help shape the future of the industry.
There's an uproar over EPA's proposed rules for CO2 emissions from new coal plants, even though no one expects anyone to build a new coal plant for at least a decade. I've argued (here and here) that the industry won't have standing to challenge the rules because they won't have any imminent impact. In fact, a new report from the Congressional Research Service calls the rules "symbolic," which bolsters my standing argument. But the body of the report also sugge...
CONTINUE READINGPassing Gas
A better accounting of GHGs can improve the climate discourse
The tendency to divide global GHG emissions by country is a product of the well-mixed dispersal of most of warming gases, and the international politics that attach to cross-border pollution. A country’s emission numbers imply accountability and culpability, and frame the discourse on how to respond. Going forward on policymaking, it’s worth looking at how these emissions are calculated, and whether the numbers cited accurately reflect international accountabil...
CONTINUE READINGThe Filibuster and the Environment
In the short run, limiting the filibuster will strengthen the hands of environmental regulators. What about the long run effects?
The filibuster arguably served a useful function when it allowed the minority to block action in extraordinary cases where its views were especially intense. It became no longer tolerable when it became a routine barrier to Senate action. Last week, the Senate abolished filibusters for nominations (except the Supreme Court). What does this mean for environmental regulation? The vote last week was along party lines. Yet, although Republicans are protesting loudly, ...
CONTINUE READINGUC Berkeley / UCLA Law Report on California Renewable Energy Policies Beyond 2020
Joint law school report will be discussed at a lunchtime forum today at UCLA Law
California is among the world's leaders in deploying renewable energy, with the state on pace to meet its target of achieving 33% of its energy from renewable sources like the sun and the wind by 2020. But the success may ironically be contributing to a stalled in-state market for more renewable power. Given the amount of renewables in the pipeline, utilities now have little incentive to procure more. To address the challenge and offer policy solutions for California'...
CONTINUE READINGState Releases New Fracking Regulations Amid SB 4 Criticism, Controversy
DOGGR also wades into CEQA while environmental community questions wisdom and effects of new State law
California's Division of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) has released its proposed regulations governing hydraulic fracturing pursuant to Senate Bill 4, controversial legislation signed into law this September. DOGGR's November 15 public notice begins its formal rulemaking process and marks the start of a 60-day public comment period for the new rules. DOGGR also filed its Notice of Preparation for a statewide Environmental Impact Report required to be conduc...
CONTINUE READINGRethinking “Adaptation”
I've spent a lot of time and energy talking about the need to adapt to climate change, but I've also become increasingly uneasy about "adaptation" as a way to think about the situation. One of the things I don't like about the term "adaptation" is that it suggests that we actually can, at some expense, restore ourselves to the same position we would have been in without climate change. For any given amount of climate change, we can do things that decrease the resulti...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia cap and trade survives industry tax challenge
Auctions can proceed in one of the state's signature climate change programs
ARB's winning streak in climate cases continues. A California superior court has rejected a prominent set of industry challenges to the state's cap-and-trade program, upholding a significant element of California's suite of programs to comply with AB 32 and to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. (Opinion here.) The cases were filed by the California Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Legal Foundation, which charged that the ...
CONTINUE READINGGreen Streets for Berkeley?
Low Impact Development (LID) or green infrastructure can be used to improve water quality in urban environments through the use of swales, bioretention basins, permeable pavement, and other approaches to managing stormwater. However, there can be challenges to actually putting green infrastructure in place. Max Gomberg and I recently published an Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle (subscription required or ping me for a copy), arguing that green infrastructure deser...
CONTINUE READINGThe Rhetoric of Cap and Trade
Different ways of framing the concept of cap and trade help drive the public debate.
Discussions of cap and trade tend to frame it in various ways, which often skews the debate. These different frameworks guide the thoughts of both supporters and critics, sometimes in surprising ways. There are four different ways to talk about cap and trade, and they tend to lead the debate in very different directions. The Economics Frame. Cap and trade began with economists, and economics still plays a large role in discussions by policy wonks. For an econom...
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