When Agencies Want to Get Sued
The Friday afternoon before Labor Day announcement by the White House that it would not lower the ozone standards under the Clean Air Act has received (rightly) a whole lot of criticism. There’s been a fair amount of speculation among environmental law observers about the legality of the decision (including Dan). What’s interesting is that a subtext of this discussion is that, if the decision was contrary to the Clean Air Act, that should be a reason to criticize...
CONTINUE READINGBackpedaling on Air Quality
The White House decided to abandon a proposed revision of the air quality standard for ozone in order not to further burden a faltering economy. The story is a bit complicated. The Bush Administration tightened the standard, but not as much as EPA's science board recommended. Environmentalists sued, but desisted when Obama's EPA said it would reconsider the issue. Now the Administration has decided not to do that after all. There's an interesting question about ...
CONTINUE READINGTwo weeks of protest against Keystone XL ends Saturday
Two weeks of civil disobedience and protest against the Keystone XL pipeline ends this Saturday (Sept. 3), with a rally and final sit-in. Over 1,000 people have been arrested, including my former professor , Gus Speth. The protestors want President Obama to deny a permit to construct a pipeline to bring oil from Canadian tar sands to the Midwest and Texas—a nearly 2000 mile trek. The pipeline would cross major rivers and the Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest aqui...
CONTINUE READINGHousing Advocates Against Affordable Housing?
As Ethan reported yesterday, AB 710, the innovative parking reform bill sponsored by the California Infill Builders Association, may not be dead, but it's not in great shape, either. Ethan blames the local government lobby for this, and that makes sense. But there are some strange bedfellows here. Take a look at the list of the opponents of the bill. It reads like an all-star team of affordable housing and economic justice advocates: LAANE, California Affordable H...
CONTINUE READINGChoosing a Law School — Advice for Future Environmental Lawyers
I get asked fairly often for advice on choosing a law school, and I thought it might be worth offering some ideas in a more public setting. Here are some thoughts you might consider as you're looking for a place to study environmental law. Program Rankings. Berkeley does well in the U.S. News ranking of environmental programs, but you shouldn't rely too heavily on rankings as a source of information. Ranking are useful information but they all have weaknesses. ...
CONTINUE READINGInfill Parking Bill Killed by Local Government Lobby?
When last we checked on AB 710, the California bill to eliminate minimum parking requirements for infill and transit-oriented projects, it sailed through Assembly committees and eventually passed that body unanimously, 78-0. And why not? The bill offers both environmental and economic benefits: by removing inefficient minimum parking requirements on transit-adjacent developments, more projects could get built in infill areas to increase transit ridership and accommod...
CONTINUE READINGWhen gas pipelines explode, who is at fault?
It is almost a year since a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California killed 8 people and destroyed 38 homes, and the National Transportation Safety Board has now issued it report. The Board found that pipeline owner Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), as well as state and federal regulators, were responsible for “a litany of failures.” The basic questions are still not fully resolved – How could something like this happen? How can we p...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Is Green Kosher?
"Green Kosher" is the new advertising tag for Empire Kosher food processors, based in rural Pennsylvania. But what does it mean? There is an important backstory here. Empire is the nation's leading kosher poultry producer, which has aggressively pursued a progressive image in the media (and particularly the Jewish media). It has done this even more aggressively in light of the shameful behavior of Agriprocessors, previously the nation's leading producer of kosher ...
CONTINUE READINGIs Cap and Trade Unfair?
I should probably start by putting my cards on the table. I'm not really an advocate of cap and trade as compared with other forms of regulation. What I care about is getting effective carbon restrictions in place, whether they take the form of cap and trade, a carbon tax, industry-wide regulations, or something else. The big advantage of cap and trade from that perspective is that some systems are already up and running, and unlike a carbon tax, it doesn't di...
CONTINUE READINGMurder, Pollution, Illegal Drugs & Our Public Lands
The murder this past weekend of Fort Bragg, California City Councilman Jere Melo puts an all-too-human face on a long-festering environmental crisis. Melo was shot and killed in a remote area in Mendocino County by a squatter who was reportedly growing marijuana on forest lands there. Councilman Melo, whose day job was to manage 150,000 acres of Mendocino forest lands owned by an investment firm, was shot to death as he investigated reports of illegal pot growing on t...
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