More on Sackett v. EPA
As Rick notes below, the Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a case arising from enforcement of the wetlands permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act, Sackett v. EPA (the link is to the 9th Circuit's opinion). SCOTUSblog has links to the briefs at the cert stage. Rick explained that the genesis of this case is in a dispute over wetlands filling. The Sacketts filled a half acre or so of their property with dirt and rock in preparation for a construction project. ...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Clean Water Act/Wetlands Case
2012 is shaping up as a busy year for environmental law at the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, as the Court recessed for the summer, the justices granted certiorari in a second environmental case that it will hear and decide in its 2011-12 Term: Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 10-1062. Sackett involves a development dispute between an Idaho couple and EPA enforcement officials that arose under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). The Sacketts filled ...
CONTINUE READINGA summer meditation on the meaning of wilderness
It's outdoor weather in far northern California, my favorite place on the planet. A day hike yesterday in the beautiful Trinity Alps Wilderness reminded me of the central question of wilderness management: how much anthropogenic modification for what purposes is compatible with the wilderness experience? This hike provided two contrasting perspectives on that question. It's just gone spring in the high country here, after an unusually snowy winter. The azaleas, lady's s...
CONTINUE READINGA New Threat to Regional Government & Environmental Quality at Lake Tahoe
Back in the early `70's, Bob Dylan wrote (and sang), "What looks large from a distance, up close ain't never that big." That Dylan lyric came to mind when reports recently emerged of the latest political controversy involving Lake Tahoe. Both nationally and internationally, there's been substantial praise for the pioneering efforts at regional planning and environmental regulation created by the bi-state Tahoe Regional Planning Compact. That Compact, initially agreed ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s New Budget: Bad For Revitalizing Neighborhoods
California Governor Jerry Brown, apparently emerging from his time warp where Republicans weren't completely radicalized against taxes and government, signed on to an all-cuts budget today, passed with majority numbers in the legislature. His failure to get any of the four Republican votes he had sought means no new taxes and a major victory for the super-minority party. We all know the cuts are devastating to the state's educational system and poor, but what about...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law and “The Law of the Horse”
"The Law of the Horse" is the title of the (perhaps apocryphal) treatise on the same subject. The point of the reference is that "there's no there there," as Gertrude Stein might have said: the law of the horse would simply be a compendium of contract cases that happened to involve horses, tort cases that happened to involve horses, etc. Is that also true of environmental law? Is it just a compendium of administrative law issues that happen to involve the environmen...
CONTINUE READINGPoor grades on Delta progress
Delta Vision Foundation, the non-profit formed to continue the work of Gov. Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Task Force, has released its second annual report card on Delta progress. (Legal Planeteer Rick Frank is a member of the Foundation's Board of Directors.) If you had to bring this one home to your parents, you'd likely be grounded for quite some time. The overall record is dismal. In the few spots where the grades look decent, they appear inflated. The Foundation ...
CONTINUE READINGGood news for Hawaiian wetland birds
Regular readers know that we try to report good news when we can. This positive report caught my eye because I recently returned from an extended stay in the islands, where I had the opportunity to see these beautiful birds. Conservation magazine reports on a recent study showing that populations of three endangered Hawaiian wetland birds have rebounded since the 1970s. (Readers with a subscription to Population Ecology can read the full study here.) Populations of ...
CONTINUE READINGCourt allows California to continue developing cap and trade program pending appeal
This just in: Late today, a California appellate court granted the State's request to stay (in other words, lift), pending appeal, the injunction issued by the lower court in Ass'n of Irritated Residents vs. CARB, the environmental justice community challenge to California's work so far under its Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). Absent any further appeal or development, this means that California is permitted to continue work on its cap and trade program while the...
CONTINUE READINGSea-Level Rise Rockets Ahead Due to Climate Change
Here's a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: An international research team has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level. Sea level rise is one of the threats of climate change, as rising temperatures melt glaciers and ice sheets and put coastal populations at ris...
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