Region: California
The Congressional Back Door Attack on California’s Environmental Programs
California’s Environmental Programs
Today’s Los Angeles Times reports on disturbing, broad-based efforts in Congress that threaten to eviscerate a host of California’s cutting-edge environmental initiatives, most prominently its “Green Chemistry” program. The saga begins with the California Legislature’s enactment of the state’s “Green Chemistry Initiative” (GCI) in 2008. The overarching principle behind GCI is to mandate the design of chemical products …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: Climate Science and Public Belief
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. In the book Collapse, Professor Jared Diamond asks, why do societies destroy themselves through disastrous decisions, even after they perceive the problem? Why, for …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Road to 2020 and Beyond
Ken Alex is a Senior Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The views expressed in this blog post are his own. Four years ago, when I was the head of the Attorney General’s environment section, I wrote a series of guest blogs for Legal Planet …
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CONTINUE READINGIs the Golden State Warriors’ Proposed Basketball Arena a Proper Public Trust Use?
The Bay Area’s NBA franchise, the Golden State Warriors, is collaborating with San Francisco city officials to develop a new, state-of-the-art basketball arena on a site that literally sits atop San Francisco Bay. Few would argue that the region’s basketball team–a perennial second-division NBA franchise until it surged into contention last season–needs a new arena. …
CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Rejects Water Agency’s “Area of Origin” Water Rights Claim
Responding to the current drought conditions confronting California, state and federal water project officials have announced cutbacks in anticipated water deliveries this summer and fall from both the Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project. It’s with that sobering backdrop that a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit …
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CONTINUE READINGSierra Club Entitled to County’s GIS Database Under California Public Records Act, Says California Supreme Court
Back in the day, when I toiled in the California Attorney General’s Office, I served a stint supervising the unit of that Office that oversees litigation involving California’s “little Freedom-of-Information Act,” officially known as the California Public Records Act (PRA). My standing advice to my attorney colleagues was never to allow a case to reach the …
CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Rules for Property Owners–Again
Observers continue to await the third and most significant property rights case on the Supreme Court’s docket this Term–Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District–which should be released later this week. In the meantime, another property rights case was decided by the justices earlier this month that, while largely overlooked by the media, represents …
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CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis Professor Dan Sperling Awarded Blue Planet Prize
Kudos to my U.C. Davis faculty colleague, Dan Sperling, this year’s recipient of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize. The Prize, awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation, is often referred to as the Nobel Prize for environmental science. Dan Sperling is one of the most influential transportation scholars and policymakers in America. A professor of engineering …
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CONTINUE READINGNot With a Bang, But With a Whimper…
As the current U.S. Supreme Court term winds down–the justices’ final opinions are due next week–attention begins to turn to the Court’s next session, scheduled to begin in October 2013. Until this week, the justices had one environmental law case on their docket for next year: U.S. Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, No. 12-625. …
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CONTINUE READINGMt Baldy getting balder? Scary projections of SoCal snow loss just released
UCLA is releasing today the first-ever detailed study of the effects of climate change on local snowfall, examining both business-as-usual and mitigation emission scenarios. Snow loss is predicted to be very significant both in the mid-term (2041-2060) and by the end of the century. The image above shows the study’s projections for reduced end-of-century snowfall …
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