Region: California
New Report on Electric Vehicle Policies & Capitol Hill Briefing Today at Noon ET (webcast available)
The environmental law centers at UCLA and UC Berkeley Schools of Law today released a new report on industry actions and federal, state, and local policies needed to stimulate long-term, mass adoption of electric vehicles. “Electric Drive by ’25” (available from either UCLA Law or Berkeley Law) is the tenth report in our Climate Change …
CONTINUE READINGMore Good News About Implementing AB32
Below I report a new announcement posted to the California Air Resources Board Webpage discussing how a small group of academic economists will be playing a new role in designing the AB32 Cap & Trade program. Here is the announcement. My bottom line is that ARB has hired a Dream Team. Forget Lebron James and …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s better than Yosemite? (Hint: add lawyers)
Say what you want about environmental lawyers: We know how to pick a conference locale. Each fall, the Environmental Law Section of the California state bar holds its annual conference just outside the gates of Yosemite National Park. Specialists in environmental, land use, and natural resources law from all segments of the bar gather to talk regulation …
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CONTINUE READINGWhen Paid Consultants Attack
In today’s Sacramento Bee, Andrew Chang has some tough things to say about California’s AB32 and about Bo Cutter and myself. He omits some details that are worth mentioning. First, some background. Last week, Bo Cutter and I published this OP-Ed in the Sac Bee. Chang’s response was published today. Point #1: We were not paid to …
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CONTINUE READINGShould the University of California Be Part of the AB32 Carbon Cap?
The OC Register reports that UCLA may face a large bill (over $5 million per year) for its current carbon dioxide emissions under AB32’s cap and trade. If true, will the faculty at UCLA continue to support this regulation? Several issues arise. First, UCLA is a non-profit. While UCLA is “big”, should non-profits be part …
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CONTINUE READINGMore monitoring problems
Here in the Bay Area we had a nasty fire at the Chevron refinery a few weeks ago. One of the questions is what, exactly, might have been in the smoke from the fire and what kinds of health effects we might expect from that smoke. Unfortunately, state and local officials haven’t been able to …
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CONTINUE READINGGenetically Modified Foods & California’s Proposition 37: What’s All the Fuss About?
Largely lost in the shuffle of the current presidential election campaign and several more heavily-publicized state ballot measures, California’s Secretary of State recently announced that the “California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act” has qualified for the state’s November 2012 election ballot, where it will appear as Proposition 37. (The text of Proposition 37 …
CONTINUE READINGCan Economists Predict AB32’s Impact?
A mildly interesting debate is taking place among the economists. On Thursday, Bo Cutter and I published this opinion piece in the Sacramento Bee. Bo and I are both supporters of AB32 but we are not “naive supporters” of this regulation. I will speak for myself here and admit that I’m a modest man. …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Does Climate Change Mean for Water Rights?
Dan Farber and I, along with Berkeley economist Michael Hanemann, have a new report out on climate change and water rights in California. The report—Legal Analysis of Barriers to Adaptation by California’s Water Sector—was prepared by Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, and it can be downloaded here. The report was released …
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CONTINUE READINGCan We Evaluate the Likely Effects of Safety Regulation Before the Regulation is Implemented?
California’s DTSC is proposing important new consumer product safety regulation. The details about this regulation are posted here. My prospective economic analysis of the regulation is posted here. An earlier draft of this analysis was co-written with Professor J.R DeShazo of UCLA.
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