Supreme Court Rules Federal Flooding of State Forest Lands an Unconstitutional Taking
Today was a busy day for the environment in the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only did the justices hear arguments in a potentially-important Clean Water Act case. (More on that in a future post.) The Court also issued its first decision among the five environmental cases pending before it this Term--three of which involve property rights claims brought under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Court's unanimous decision today in Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v...
CONTINUE READINGHow the Democrats’ Supermajority Can Improve California’s Downtowns
Now that Democrats in California have achieved the Pete Wilson Supermajority in the legislature, they should focus on two key reforms to revitalize the state's downtowns and ensure more efficient land use. First, the supermajority should put on the ballot a constitutional initiative to lower the threshold for passing local tax measures to fund transit. The current two-thirds threshold has handcuffed local governments and should be lowered to at least 55%. As I wrote a...
CONTINUE READINGFeeling the Heat
The forecast for the end of this century seems to be getting worse. New measurements, reported by E&E here, indicate that Greenland is shedding ice rapidly -- and Antarctica is also shedding: Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking three times faster than they were in the 1990s, and their contribution to global sea level rise is growing, according to a new study by many of the world's top ice experts. Melting of the two massive polar ice sheets raise...
CONTINUE READINGDeconstructing Today’s Supreme Court Arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center
Legal Planet colleague Holly Doremus did an excellent job last week of previewing today's U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, a potentially important case involving the scope of USEPA's point source permit jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. But given the results of those arguments and a major, late-breaking regulatory development similarly anticipated in Holly's recent post, it looks like the Decker case--at least in...
CONTINUE READINGThe strange saga of how Los Angeles County’s stormwater pollution ended up in the Supreme Court
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council. This case involves a lawsuit by clean-water advocates to require our County Flood Control District to take responsibility for ensuring that polluted stormwater doesn't impair our local water quality in two local rivers. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held the County responsible, and the Court is reviewing that decision. I have nev...
CONTINUE READINGSenator Rubio Goes to Moscow
In Internet time, it's already an old story, but worth repeating. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Tea Party guy, was asked in a GQ interview how old he believes the earth is. His reply: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the...
CONTINUE READINGWhat to expect in the logging roads case
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. This coming Monday, Dec. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the logging roads case. The case involves two consolidated petitions, Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center and Georgia Pacific v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center , both challenging the same decision of the Ninth Circuit, Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown, 640 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2011). (Decker is brought on behalf of the state of Oregon...
CONTINUE READINGOn the Irrelevance of Doha: The Demand for an Absence of International Regimes
Just compare for a moment the high expectations around Copenhagen in 2009 and the obscurity of Doha today, and you can quickly get a sense of the basic contemporary irrelevance of UN bodies in the creation of climate policy. (At the New York Times website as of this writing, Doha doesn't even merit a mention in the "World" section; on the site's general front page, however, there is a link to news from the Los Angeles Auto Show.). Importantly, though, this means littl...
CONTINUE READINGChasing Ice, For Now
Last night I watched glaciers more than 30,000 years old break open and crash into the ocean - disappearing in mere seconds. In photographer James Balog’s new documentary, Chasing Ice, he and a small team embark upon a multi-year “Extreme Ice Survey” to document 18 glaciers in remote regions of the world, including Iceland, Greenland and Alaska. The film serves as a visual record of our rapidly changing world and its powerful, violent impact on our most ancie...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental law jobs blog
Tseming Yang, distinguished Berkeley Law alum and currently professor of law at Santa Clara University, is offering a great public service for environmental law students and lawyers who may be looking for a job shift. His Environmental Law and Other Jobs/Opportunities blog collects information from a range of sources in one convenient location. Check it out if you're in the job market....
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