U.C. Davis Issues Nitrates in Drinking Water Study
The University of California at Davis has issued an important new study assessing the public health hazards associated with nitrates in California drinking water. The study, led by U.C. Davis Professors Thomas Harter and Jay Lund, contains some important and disturbing findings. The full study can be found here, the Executive Summary here. The new U.C. Davis study is a result of 2008 legislation directing the State Water Resources Control Board to prepare a report for...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law’s Lessons for the Health Care Mandate
The drafters of the health care reform law might have learned something from environmental policy makers when it comes to mandates and public opinion. When the five conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed a visceral reaction against the government compelling citizens to buy health insurance last week, their distaste was not unlike the visceral reaction many citizens have to mandates in environmental contexts. But in the environmental world, policy makers ha...
CONTINUE READINGAuction prices in California’s cap-and-trade program
This week, the Emmett Center released a new paper on the potential legal constraints on revenue generated from California's upcoming greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade auction. In that paper, we provide a general overview of the cap-and-trade auction mechanism and discuss the potential revenue raised. I would like to expand on that discussion in a series of posts, starting here with auction pricing. After a trial run in August, CARB will begin auctioning some allowa...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Takings/Flooding Case
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in what will be the first environmental case of its next (2012-13) Term: Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, No. 11-597. The ultimate question is whether the federal government is liable for millions of dollars in damages for flooding a 23,000-acre wildlife management area owned by the State of Arkansas. But the litigation also raises the threshold legal issue of whether such property damage claims should ...
CONTINUE READINGWill California’s cap-and-trade program get 85% of its reductions from offsets?
Will California's greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program meet 85% of its required reductions with offsets? That is the claim made in a complaint recently filed in a California Superior Court, seeking to throw out California's offset regulations. (Citizens Climate Lobby v. CARB.) The complaint cites a NY Times article from 2011, in which someone from California's Air Resources Board (CARB) says that 85% is theoretically possible under one scenario, but "the scenario u...
CONTINUE READINGPeter Douglas, RIP
Peter Douglas, who did more than anyone else to preserve the California coastline, has died at the age of 69. Rick and I discussed his retirement a few months ago here and here. He will be sorely, sorely missed....
CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools in the Public Interest: Environmental Programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest
Environmental law programs on the West Coast and in the Southwest -- basically, the states in the Ninth Circuit -- are very active in public service. Here are some examples: A continuing legal education program for lawyers on energy and environment. A natural resources clinic that participates in administrative proceedings before federal lands agencies. A clinic that has litigated cases involving the protection of a national park, the regulation of invasive species...
CONTINUE READINGNew paper on California’s cap-and-trade auction revenue
The Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment has just released a new paper that describes how California law may limit the ability of California's legislature to allocate revenue from the upcoming cap-and-trade auctions. Written by fellow bloggers Cara Horowitz, Sean Hecht, Ann Carlson and myself, the paper is titled Spending California's Cap-and-Trade Auction Revenue: Understanding the Sinclair Paint Risk Spectrum. This paper assesses legal constraints ...
CONTINUE READINGHow CEQA Saved Mono Lake
Environmental lawyers and policy wonks know that the California Supreme Court's famed decision in Nat'l Audubon Soc'y v. Superior Court, better known as the Mono Lake case, saved California's second-largest lake from drying up. And to some extent this is true: I am working on a full-length book about the case, and so far that story seems to check out. But as a practical matter, without the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Mono Lake case would ha...
CONTINUE READINGBreaking Ice, Rising Waters
The latest issue of Nature contains an interesting article about climate change -- not the current warming but the last one, at the end of the Ice Age. Here's the editor's summary: A rapid sea-level rise occurred towards the end of the last ice age, during an event known as meltwater pulse 1A. The precise magnitude and timing of the event have remained obscure, rendering the climate forcings and consequent ice-sheet responses unclear. Pierre Deschamps and colleagues no...
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