Jonathan’s Crazy: Prop. 23 Is the Most Important Environmental Initiative
Jonathan claims in this post that Prop. 23 -- the California ballot initiative that would prohibit the state from implementing its climate change legislation -- is NOT the most important environmental initiative on the California ballot this fall. That honor, he says, goes to Prop. 25. Prop. 25 reforms California's rules for passing a state budget. I agree with Jonathan that Prop. 25 is crucial for restoring a modicum of budget sanity to the Golden State. But he...
CONTINUE READINGYes on Proposition 21
Proposition 21 on next month's California ballot seems like a pretty easy call: it would raise the state's Vehicle License Fee by $18, with the money being dedicated to the state's park system (it would also end parking and user fees to enjoy those parks). That system remains one of the nation's best but is in serious trouble because of the state's permanent budget crisis: it faces a $1 billion backlog of deferred maintenance, and Governor Schwarzenegger closed several...
CONTINUE READINGThe Most Important Ballot Measure for the California Environment
...might not be Proposition 23, although I'm cheating somewhat because climate change is more about the global environment than the state's. So maybe you're thinking of Proposition 21, which raises the Vehicle License Fee by $18 in order to fund state parks? Important, yes, but not the most important. Proposition 19, which supports the growing of, uh, weed? Nice try, but no. The most important initiative is Proposition 25, which reduces California's archaic and dy...
CONTINUE READINGA Prop 23 Op. Ed.
Two of us (Rick Frank and myself) have just published an op. ed in the LA Times on Prop. 23. In a nutshell, Proponents of Proposition 23 argue that going forward with AB 32 in the midst of the current recession would further damage the state's economy and eliminate jobs. But a study we recently coauthored reveals major pitfalls in Proposition 23. The study, sponsored by the UC Berkeley law school's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, concludes that the ini...
CONTINUE READINGThe New Yorker on Climate Legislation
Read the whole thing. Really. Because if you don't, and all you do is read the subtitle -- How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change -- or just read the tag line -- "Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change" -- then you will get a totally distorted view of the piece. The article makes it abundantly clear that from the start, only a miracle could have gotten c...
CONTINUE READINGDoes the Earth Need Chemo?
In a recent conversation, a Berkeley climate scientist compared geoengineering to chemo: you may find out it's your only choice, but it would be better not to get cancer in the first place. Likewise, we might need geoengineering, but it would be better if we didn't pump the atmosphere full of carbon. Nevertheless, it's important to know our options. Today's Washington Post has a useful article that describes the current state of play: "We're getting a sense that ...
CONTINUE READINGWelcome to our new environmental law fellow Rhead Enion
A few weeks ago, we gained a new colleague here at UCLA Law: Rhead Enion. Rhead, a graduate of Duke University Law School, Stanford, and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, is our new Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy. He has worked as a research fellow at Duke's Nicholas Institute and has interned with Oceana, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the ACLU of North Carolina. Rhead will be working with us on all sorts of projects...
CONTINUE READINGMajor Berkeley Conference on Climate and Energy
Today and tomorrow, Berkeley is hosting a major conference featuring leading scientists, engineers, and policy analysts. The keynote speakers include: Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences Chris Field, Co-chair, IPCC Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, DOE A live webcast is available here....
CONTINUE READINGRecent offshore oil developments
It's been another busy week in the world of offshore oil regulation. Here are links to a few developments: In the courts, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as moot Interior's appeal from the District Court's preliminary injunction of the first moratorium on new deep-water drilling permits. That makes sense to me even though the U.S. has gone back and forth in its views on mootness, arguing to the District Court that the first challenge was mooted by the new mo...
CONTINUE READINGCongratulations to Berkeley Law alum Kassie Siegel
Last week, the Daily Journal named Kassie Siegel, Berkeley Law '00, one of the most influential lawyers of the decade in California. Kassie directs the Center for Biological Diversity's highly successful Climate Law Institute. I can't send you to the Daily Journal story, because their web site requires a subscription, but you can read the Center for Biological Diversity's press release. Best line from the press release: "If I was facing extinction, I’d want Kassie Sieg...
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