New nonprofit Harbor Community Benefit Foundation launches, seeks Executive Director to oversee millions of dollars in community benefits projects in Los Angeles’s near-port communities
A historic agreement between the Port of Los Angeles and various stakeholders has resulted in the founding of a new nonprofit organization, the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation. HCBF's mission is "to carry out mitigation and other public benefit projects that assess, protect, and improve health, quality of life, and the natural environment, with a focus on the near-port communities of San Pedro and Wilmington, California." The Port, a major hub of international co...
CONTINUE READINGHow Should Law Schools Teach Land Use?
I haven't taught Land Use for a few years, but under pressure from the administration, I'm gearing up to teach it again a year from now. And I'm going to need that time to figure it out, because it's a little frustrating teaching it in the traditional way. To the extent that there is a "traditional" land use curriculum, it seems to center on two things: Takings and standards of review. The first is self-explanatory, and the second basically comprises everything el...
CONTINUE READINGThe ABA versus the Environment?
The ABA House of Delegates will vote on a Resolution (Resolution 11-6) that would abolish the ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law (SCEL) at its Annual Meeting next Monday. Lesley McAllister has a posting about this over at the Environmental Law Prof blog: Resolution 11-6 would abolish SCEL and merge its functions into the Section on Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER). SEER's primary mission, however, is to serve the day-to-day needs of its members, which te...
CONTINUE READINGAn inconvenient truth
A new paper in the Marine Ecology Progress Series open access journal (peer-reviewed) tells it like it is in ways that environmental scientists are often reluctant to do. Authors Camilo Mora and Peter F. Sale took a very big-picture look at how well reserves are protecting biodiversity, on land and at sea. The analysis is necessarily crude, but attention-getting. They find that the area devoted to reserves has gone up steeply over the past 40 years, while biodiversity ...
CONTINUE READINGMillenium Development Goals Report 2011
We're a little late on this, but early last month the United Nations issued its 2011 Millenium Development Goals report, which really should be at the top of the environmental community's focus. Usually, the MDGs are thought of simply as concerning poverty and development, but of course these issues deeply concern the environment. More directly, although not often highlighted, the seventh MDG is "environmental sustainability." There's actually some good news here...
CONTINUE READINGPricing Carbon: How Would It Affect the Poor?
Putting a price on carbon – whether through a trading system, a carbon tax, or otherwise – will increase energy costs. These increases are regressive because the poor spend a larger portion of their budgets on gasoline, heating and power. But determining the ultimate distributive impacts of pricing carbon is not straightforward. Pricing carbon has a host of indirect effects that may affect wages and return on capital, which themselves will impact income distrib...
CONTINUE READINGNevada Re-Discovers the Public Trust Doctrine
The Nevada Supreme Court was the source of a pleasant surprise earlier this month, when it issued a decision formally "adopting" the public trust doctrine as Nevada law. The opinion, Lawrence v. Clark County, involved a proposed transfer of land in and adjacent to the Colorado River near Laughlin, Nevada to Clark County officials. Nevada state legislation directed the state land agency to acquire federal land within Clark County limits and then transfer it to the county...
CONTINUE READINGLA Times Climate Reporter Laid Off
Just got a forwarded email from Margot Roosevelt, the LA Times' terrific climate and energy reporter, sharing the news that she's been laid off. She and her work will be missed....
CONTINUE READINGPost-Tsunami Japan Teaches the World About Energy Within Limits
Earlier this summer, I accompanied a class of renewable energy law students to a home in Vermont that is “off the grid”. The family lives quite comfortably – television, microwave oven, electric washing machine, sizable refrigerator. With the exception of a small diesel generator, which they use once or twice a year, they derive all of their electric power from a set of photovoltaic panels and a series of lead acid batteries, protected by a wooden box in the ba...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Role in the New Fuel Economy Standards
Dan rightly praised the good news about newly agreed to federal fuel economy standards for the 2017-2025 time frame that will reach 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 (though there will be a review at midpoint and a possibility for readjustment if the 54.5 mpg standard proves too tough). In all of the press coverage about the new standards the Obama Administration gets high marks for pushing hard for the standards. Moreover the standards, virtually everyone acknowledge...
CONTINUE READING