How to Lie with Percentages
It’s easy to make something seem big or small, depending on how you present the numbers.
— A man’s assets are only 0.2% of U.S. wealth. — A regulation costs only 0.004% of U.S. GDP per year. — A disease kills 0.1% of the population annually. That all sounds pretty minor, doesn’t it? But …. — The man - Elon Musk – is worth over $246 billion. — The regulation costs a billion dollars per year. — The disease – breast cancer – kills 42,000 American per year. The deceptiveness of percentages arises from the fact tha...
CONTINUE READINGTracking the Trump Administration
Rollbacks of Climate, Energy, and Environmental Policies and Investments
The first month of the Trump Administration has resulted in a dizzying flurry of actions and reactions. Many of us are wondering how to track the status of these actions, including the legal challenges to these actions. Luckily, a number of institutions are keeping track of the range of policy and legal actions that are happening. Some have been tracking for some time, while others are new. Below is a guide to some available trackers. We have collected these on...
CONTINUE READINGTrump Shoves Economic Analysis and Science to the Curb
The MAGA agenda takes precedence over data and analysis.
If you were looking for data-driven regulatory policy, you’re not going to find it in this Administration. On the contrary, Trump has marginalized economic analysis and wants to bulldoze environmental science. Thus, we are likely to get policies that are bad for the environment without being cost-justified, while ignoring policies whose environmental benefits outweigh economic costs. Raise your hand if you think this sounds like a good idea. Let me start with ...
CONTINUE READINGMaking Polluters Pay for Climate Consequences
A pair of new bills introduced in the California State Legislature would create a climate superfund. Here's how it would work.
The dramatic increase in extreme weather events has been wreaking havoc on states across the country, from devastating fires, floods, and droughts to rising sea levels. As a member of the Board for the American Red Cross Pacific Coast Region, I have seen firsthand how the organization is responding to twice as many climate-related disasters as we were just a decade ago. As states shoulder the burden of recovery and rebuilding efforts, they are seeking ways to fund ad...
CONTINUE READINGProject 2025 Envisions Reducing the Size of National Monuments
Does the President Have Authority to Shrink an Existing National Monument?
UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & Environment (CLEE) is sponsoring a series of papers evaluating aspects of Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation publication, entitled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” which is being followed to a significant degree as a blueprint for the Trump Administration. The third paper in our Monograph series focuses on Project 2025's call to reduce the size of national monuments and repeal the Antiquities Act...
CONTINUE READINGThe Seven County Case and the Limits of Causation Under NEPA
Analysis of causation under NEPA should be driven by the statute’s purpose of informed decisionmaking.
Our final article on the Seven Counties case before the Supreme Court, and how to think about causation and NEPA, is now out with the on-line companion to the Administrative Law Review, Accord. For those who don’t have time for the whole paper, here’s the abstract: This spring, the Supreme Court will decide Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, its first significant case under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) since the early 2000s. The...
CONTINUE READINGHow to Grow a Victory Garden out of Trash
Private recycling subscription services are helping my family divert our waste, though I wish we didn’t need them.
While unelected billionaires and sycophant cabinet members are pretending to get rid of waste in Washington, I’ve declared war on waste, fraud, and abuse in my own Los Angeles home. My family is fighting food and plastic waste using a pair of recycling subscription services. Yes, I realize it’s just a small ripple in the sea of bullshit that is 2025 so far, but hey, you have to start with the things you can control, right? And my own waste stream fits that bill. ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Top-Ten Lower Court Decisions on Environmental Law
Don’t let the headlines deceive you. It’s not just the Supreme Court that shapes environmental law.
The Supreme Court tends to get all the attention, but for every Supreme Court opinion on environmental law there are probably fifty opinions in the lower federal courts. Collectively, the lower courts have done at least as much to shape the law as the Supreme Court’s occasional interventions. Any “top ten” list is a bit arbitrary. Given the sheer number of lower court cases, my selection will reflect chance – which lower court cases I happen to know the most ab...
CONTINUE READINGNew State Bill Targets Pollution from Aggregate Facilities
Guest contributors Mayahuel Hernandez and Ian Bertrando explain the air-quality benefits of SB 526, a bill they worked on with California State Sen. Caroline Menjivar.
The California Senate just took a critical step toward confronting unhealthy air quality in environmental justice communities through the introduction of a new Senate Bill 526. This proposed legislation aims to curb dangerous dust emissions from aggregate facilities in the South Coast Air Basin, where industrial pollution has long threatened public health and the environment. As students in UCLA Law’s California Environmental Legislation and Policy Clinic (Fall 202...
CONTINUE READINGCongress Lacks Authority to Review California’s Car Waiver
It’s a complicated issue but the answer is clear: the Congressional Review Act does not apply.
The Trump Administration has asked Congress to kill California’s current clean car and truck regulations. The process is a bit circuitous. Congress wouldn’t directly overturn the California regulations. Instead, Congress would overturn an EPA order that waives federal preemption of EPA’s regulations. The problem is that the statute which authorizes this kind of congressional action does not apply here. Although some previous posts have touched on the issue, it...
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
