Attack of the Dim Bulbs
The country may be flirting with deadbeat status and risking another financial meltdown, but some people keep their eyes on the prize -- they know what's really important. The House of Representatives yesterday voted on the BULB Act, repealing the federal mandate to increase the energy efficiency of light bulbs. (The bill was considered so urgent that it was brought to the floor under a special suspension of the rules; fortunately, this procedural move backfired when BUL...
CONTINUE READINGBolstering Public Transit in California: A New White Paper from UCLA / Berkeley Law
Public transit in California, while historically underfunded compared to roads and freeways, has suffered even worse as the state's economy has tanked and Sacramento legislators have raided transit funds to pay their general fund bills. But the buses and trains that comprise the state's transit system provide badly needed economic benefits for Californians. These benefits include the jobs created from new investment and the money saved by households who no longer n...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law Scholarship: A Sampler
If you're wondering what environmental law scholarship is about, here's about three-weeks-worth of recent publications, covering everything from roadless rules to fisheries to renewable energy to climate change. 1. Aarons, Kyle J. Note. The real world roadless rules challenges. 109 Mich. L. Rev. 1293-1325 (2011). 2. Blades, Emmi. Comment. Using the legal system to gain control of natural resources on tribal lands: lessons from the Confederated Salish an...
CONTINUE READINGA Nation of Frogs?
It is said that, if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it immediately jumps out and is saved. But if you put a frog in a pot of cold water and gradually warm it, you can boil the frog without it ever realizing that it's being cooked. It's not hard to see the possible connection with climate change. The average temperature gradually warms; rainfall patterns shift; there seem to be a few more places every year with record-setting heat waves, droughts, or floo...
CONTINUE READINGA Judicial Setback for PACE Energy Efficiency and Renewables Financing
Many moons ago, I blogged about the saga of the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing program and the lawsuits to preserve it. As a quick review, PACE allows municipal governments to use funds from the bond market to help property owners finance energy efficiency retrofits and renewable energy arrays on their property. The property owners then repay the local governments, which in turn repay the bondholders, via assessments on their property tax bills over a ...
CONTINUE READINGWelcoming a New Blogger
We're pleased to welcome Alex Wang to Legal Planet. He is beginning a two-year term as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law School. Alex comes here following six years as a Senior Attorney and Director of the China Environmental Law Project for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He worked on environment and energy issues at NRDC and helped establish and run NRDC’s office in Beijing. Alex previously blogged at Switchboard, the NRDC blog....
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Regulation as a Jobs Program
This is a continuation of my earlier posting about the impact of environmental law on the economy as a whole, putting aside its benefits in terms of human health and welfare. As in the earlier post, I'm going to use the compliance cost estimate of a report from the Small Business Association of $280 billion (2009 dollars), since that’s a number liked by opponents of environmental regulation. It may seem counterintuitive, but in the present economy, this spending is...
CONTINUE READINGIn Memoriam: David Getches
We are very sorry to report the death of David Getches, who was the Raphael J. Moses Professor of Natural Resources Law at the University of Colorado School of Law. His fields were water law, public land law, environmental law, and Indian law. Professor Getches several books on water law and one on Indiana law. He is known for his calls for reform of Colorado River governance and his criticisms of the Supreme Court’s departure from traditional principles in Ind...
CONTINUE READINGSo Much for California’s Anti-Sprawl Law
When California passed SB 375 in 2008, the national media swooned and smart growth advocates issued glossy brochures about the law. SB 375 was intended to curb sprawl, promote more compact and walkable communities served by transit, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all through a regional planning process that would coordinate land use plans with transportation funding. It was intended to be solely incentive-based, with no mandates for housing or transit. San Die...
CONTINUE READINGSome Simple Arithmetic About Environmental Regulation and the Economy
Are environmental laws costing us jobs? There are a number of reasons to question that idea, but the simplest one is simply that environmental law doesn't cost enough to make huge economic effects plausible. Let's begin on the cost side. To be fair to the anti-regulatory folks, I'm going to use the compliance cost estimate of a report from the Small Business Association of $280 billion (2009 dollars). The SBA has come in for a lot of criticism for its deregulatory ...
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