Does Deregulation Hypercharge the Economy?
If the economics effects are that huge, you’d expect the unemployment rate reflect major regulatory or deregulatory moves. It doesn’t.
Are environmental regulations destroying jobs and crippling the economy? On March 12, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on X that: “@EPA is initiating 31 historic actions to Power the Great American Comeback in the greatest day of deregulation in American history!” (EPA listed only 22, math not being a Trump Administration strongpoint,) In the attached video, Zeldin exulted that “EPA will be reconsidering many suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sec...
CONTINUE READING100 Days of Fear & Loathing in Climate World
The Drain is a weekly roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet.
Are you tired of the words “100 days”? “In his first 100 days the Trump administration has slashed federal agencies, canceled national reports, and yanked funding from universities,” Grist puts it. “One hundred days of anti-environmental mayhem,” says Dan Farber at Legal Planet. My UCLA colleague Ann Carlson is quoted by the New York Times in a very comprehensive Opinion Essay that asked 35 legal scholars about Trump’s “lawless presidency during t...
CONTINUE READINGThe Politics of Geoengineering Are Getting Stranger
Of all the pollution threats out there, why are state lawmakers and U.S. EPA targeting solar geoengineering?
There are strange things happening in Climate World, in addition to all the horrifying things. Among the strangest is a surge in state bills to prohibit solar geoengineering. Just as strange is the recent shot across the bow by Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin against one tiny startup firm that claims to be doing geoengineering. The explanation for why involves chemtrails, cloud seeding, and the populist right and left converging. First, some background draw...
CONTINUE READINGSharing the Sidewalk with EV Charging Cords
New CLEE policy brief describes an innovative EV charging solution.
In cities throughout the US, electric vehicle (EV) drivers have found a creative, low-cost way to transfer electricity from their home to the curbside. You have probably seen it by now: a charging cord peeks out from a home and sprawls across the sidewalk–either beneath your feet or over your head–before plugging into a curbside-parked vehicle. In most cities, this cheeky maneuver isn’t legal; stray sidewalk charging cords typically violate laws governing the publi...
CONTINUE READINGHousing Abundance Meets California’s Political Realities
A Senate Housing Committee debate last week was a sobering indication.
There's a lot of talk in certain policy circles these days about abundance, as a strategy to improve people's lives and lower the cost of living through better governance. Nowhere is "abundance" needed more than in California, where housing costs due to a dire long-term shortage of homes has made the state one of the most expensive to live in in the country. Although the logical response to an extreme shortage would be to build more housing of all types, that wasn't the...
CONTINUE READING100 Days of Anti-Environmental Mayhem
A flood of anti-environmental initiatives threatens to undo decades of progress.
Trump’s first term led to him being called the most anti-environmental president in U.S. history. This term is shaping up to be much worse. Regulatory rollbacks promise to be even more extensive than last time. In addition, the Administration has withheld funding for clean technology, denounced the very idea of environmental justice, and begun a campaign to gut environmental agencies. And that’s only the first hundred days of Trump’s second term. A complete ca...
CONTINUE READINGProject 2025 and the National Energy Emergency
Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash
What Actions Can the President Take By Declaring an Energy Emergency?
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 fourth paper in our Monograph series focuses on Project 2025's promotion of fossil fuels and Trump's declaration of a national energy emer...
CONTINUE READINGCanada’s Election: Real Stakes for the Planet
Despite cynical criticisms of no differences between the parties, Carney and the Liberals are an obvious choice.
Nearly four decades ago, New York Times columnist Flora Lewis penned a piece, entitled “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” that became infamous in journalistic lore: The New Republic crowned it as the World’s Most Boring Headline because all three words were extremely boring. No more. Donald Trump’s demented economic war against America’s largest trading partner, and his even more deranged desire to turn a sovereign nation into the 51st state, has driven th...
CONTINUE READINGThe California ESA and habitat protection
How California can fill in for a reduction in federal protection for endangered speciees
Following up on my prior post about the proposed changes to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations that protect against habitat modification, what might California do to protect the species within its border? California currently has 140 federally listed animal species, and 182 federally listed plant species, 19% of the 1684 species listed under the ESA in the United States. California also has its own endangered species law, the California Endangered S...
CONTINUE READINGUnsheathing a Weapon for Clean Air: ISRs
New UCLA Law report focuses on how to use Indirect Source Rules to fight pollution from mega facilities.
We don’t have to tell you that air pollution remains a serious threat to communities across California, from Oakland to the Inland Empire. But what if we told you that most air regulators are fighting air pollution with one hand tied behind their back, unnecessarily? It turns out there is a powerful weapon that can clean up the air that you and your family breathe, but only two of California’s 35 local air districts are using it. This is the subject of the UCLA E...
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