Single Subject = Single Stupidity
New House Rule Designed To Cause Dysfunction
The House Rules package passed last night is potentially a disaster: it seems specifically created to make it impossible for the federal government to pay its debts, although there are (second-best) ways around it that President Biden will undoubtedly use. One provision, though, seems common-sensical: each bill must have a "single subject." No more massive omnibus bills throwing in the kitchen sink. It appears like it just enhances transparency. It piggybacks on 4...
CONTINUE READINGLearning to Name Environmental Problems
It was only in the 1960s that the Supreme Court learned to talk about “pollution” and “wilderness.”
There are Supreme Court cases going back a century or more dealing with what we would now consider environmental issues such as preserving nature or air pollution. But when did the Court start seeing filthy rivers and smokey cities as embodiments of the same problem, despite their striking physical differences? And when it did start thinking of "wilderness" as a good thing rather than a failure to use available resources? It was only once that shift was made that ...
CONTINUE READINGA Taste of Things to Come
Welcome to 2023. It’s going to be a wild ride.
In the past week, we’ve gotten a glimpse of what the next two years will look like. On the one hand, chaos in Congress. On the other hand, quiet progress toward environmental goals by the Biden Administration. Both trends are likely to continue throughout this Congress and the second half of the presidential term. The chaos is common knowledge. Much as Netanyahu’s desperate quest to become prime minister led to unprecedented power for a small band extreme right-...
CONTINUE READINGAdvances in State Climate Policy
Despite the distractions of a national election, there were important developments around the country.
Last year, Congress took its first big step into climate policy by passing blockbuster spending measures. Nonetheless, many states are ahead of the Feds in climate policy. There were important developments in a multitude of states. California remained a hotspot for climate action. In terms of transportation emissions, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved regulations banning the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035. The law contains important m...
CONTINUE READINGLA’s Big Step toward Building Electrification
Los Angeles is about to require that new buildings be electric, but there’s a bigger decarbonization hurdle waiting.
The City of Los Angeles is going into the new year with a big new building-decarbonization ordinance: starting this year, nearly all new buildings in the city will have to be entirely electric. This means that, with few exceptions, new buildings will need to exclusively use electric appliances, and will not be allowed to contain any fossil-fuel infrastructure, like natural-gas lines. All-electric as the new normal The new rules are simple: after April 1 (June 1 for...
CONTINUE READINGThe Year Ahead
Here are the top ten environment and energy developments to watch for.
Here we are, starting another year. Last year turned out to have some major environmental developments. The most notable were the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia case, striking down the Clean Power Plan, and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, with its huge economic incentives for clean energy. Here’s quick rundown of what 2023 might hold in store. The Sackett case. A ruling in this case, now back in the Supreme Court a second time, could...
CONTINUE READINGA New Birth of Housing?
Omnibus' "Baby YIMBY" Bill Offers An Opportunity For Cities -- And For Advocates
Tucked deep inside the massive Omnibus bill is what has been called the "Baby YIMBY" provision -- an $85 million grant program, to be administered by HUD: The bill provides the U.S. Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with $85 million to dole out on a competitive basis to jurisdictions for "the identification and removal of barriers to affordable housing production and preservation." The secretary, currently Marcia Fudge, would have wide discretion to s...
CONTINUE READINGA Dangerous Disruption
A startup firm proposes to sell dubious carbon credits from stratospheric aerosol injection
Last week, MIT’s “Technology Review” reported that a small startup firm is proposing to spray reflective aerosols in the stratosphere commercially as a climate corrective. (Stratospheric Aerosol Injection or SAI.) Previously announced online in the Google Geoengineering Group, the firm is small and new, operating with a claimed total of $750K of venture financing. They say they have thus far launched two small weather balloons, which each released a few grams of su...
CONTINUE READINGThe Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 10 Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2022
Climate Change, Water Rights, Environmental Justice & Federalism Issues Highlighted the Ninth Circuit's Prodigious Environmental Docket This Year
I've shared in previous posts my view that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is--after the U.S. Supreme Court--the most influential court in the nation when it comes to environmental and natural resources law. That's true for two related reasons: first, the sprawling Ninth Circuit encompasses nine different states (including California) and several territories in the Western United States that together generate considerable environmental litigation. �...
CONTINUE READINGReflections on a Century of “Regulatory Takings” Law
A Century Ago, the Supreme Court Created a Transformative Legal Doctrine Out of Whole Cloth
One hundred years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a radical constitutional decision that over the last century has proven enormously consequential in a host of environmental, natural resources and public health contexts. In the December 1922 decision Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon, a divided Supreme Court created the constitutional doctrine of "regulatory takings." A bit of background is required to understand the significance of the Pennsylva...
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