More on California Environmental Leader & Coastal Advocate Peter Douglas
Legal Planet colleague Jonathan Zasloff has previously written about the recently-announced retirement of long-time California Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas. I'd like to add a few additional comments about Peter, my long-time mentor, client and friend. Peter Douglas has devoted the past four decades of his incredibly rich and active life to the cause of environmental protection. As a California legislative staffer, he helped draft the 1972 initi...
CONTINUE READINGThe GOP Candidates on Energy (and Environment)
I've taken this information from the websites of some of the Republican contenders. What they say about their policies and records may not be exactly objective, but it's interesting to see how they'd like to be perceived on environment and energy. Here are four takeaway points: Republican primary voters apparently don't care very much about environment or energy issues -- some candidates don't even bother to address these issues on their website. Environment is se...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Works to Promote Energy Efficiency Retrofits
California has much to brag about when it comes to energy efficiency. Per capita, the state's residents use far less energy than our national counterparts while enjoying an equal or better standard of living, thanks to energy efficiency standards developed in the 1970s: But the state is committed to doing better. Last week, I was invited to Sacramento to present findings from the Berkeley and UCLA Law white paper "Saving Energy" at a legislative hearing on the economi...
CONTINUE READINGClimate, Energy, and the Presidential Race
Michele Bachmann ripped into Tim Pawlenty last night for his past support of cap-and-trade. "When you were governor of Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state.... you said the era of small government was over. That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama if you ask me." Several of the other candidates have backed away from their previous support for cap-and-trade measures as governors. It remains fascinating that this mainstream economic concept, long co...
CONTINUE READINGThe Greening of Tisha B’Av
Three days ago, I fasted on the Jewish holy day of Tisha B'Av, which marks and commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Jews observe the day also by reading Eikha, the biblical Book of Lamentations. No fast day could be considered pleasant, but it has always been a particularly meaningful day for me, not the least because it runs so counter to Americans' concept of history: as the great historian Richard Hofstadter incisively observe...
CONTINUE READINGGifford Pinchot’s Birthday
Gifford Pinchot (the final "t" is silent) was born on August 11, 1865. He was responsible for founding the Yale School of Forestry, which remains a major center for environmental research and teaching today. Like Chief Justice John Marshall, he is also considered the founding father of an institution even though he wasn't the institution's first leader -- in Pinchot's case, the institution was the Forest Service. He remains a controversial figure for environmentalis...
CONTINUE READINGAn Environmental Hero Rides Into the Sunset
The Sacramento Bee reports today that Peter Douglas, the long-time executive director of the California Coastal Commission, has taken a medical leave of absence and will retire in November. Douglas definitely deserves his retirement, but it's a real loss for the environmental community. Douglas helped draft the original Coastal Act as legislative director for former state Senator Alan Sieroty; he became the Commission's initial deputy director, and then assumed the...
CONTINUE READINGThe Tea Party Embraces Local Energy Efficiency Financing?
It looks like we've finally found an environmental issue that can attract strong bipartisan support. The PACE program allows municipal bond financing to pay for energy efficiency retrofits and solar panels, among other environmentally benign building improvements, to be repaid through property tax assessments. But the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) essentially squashed the residential version of this program, and lawsuits against FHFA have had mixed resu...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Deniers: Stupid or Evil?
It's an interesting psychological question, actually. Fox News' climate change "expert," the appropriately-named Joe Bastardi, claims that the theory of anthropogenic climate change cannot be true because it contradicts what we call the 1st law of thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. So to look for input of energy into the atmosphere, you have to come from a foreign source. Uhh...that "foreign source" of energy would be the sun. The theory of...
CONTINUE READINGEco-Nutrition Labels
Increasingly, consumers want to know where their food comes from, how it is produced, and what impact their choices are having on the environment. The standard "Nutrition Facts" label provides information on ingredients and calories, but says nothing about where a food came from, nor the energy and natural resources expended in its production. Is it time for an "eco-nutrition label" that provides information on both nutrients as well as the environmental impacts of pro...
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