Region: California
California Supreme Court Upholds Abolition of Local Redevelopment Agencies
The California Supreme Court waited until the very end of 2011 to issue the year’s most important land use decision. While the specific issues relate to arcane issues of public finance and state constitutional law, today’s decision in California Redevelopment Association v. Matosantos is likely to have major consequences for local land use authority and …
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CONTINUE READINGGovernor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks & California’s Future
Today I attended the California Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future, held at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It was a lively event with speakers including Governor Brown, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the UN IPCC, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a host …
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CONTINUE READINGTea Party activist wants to repeal all California environmental laws
A number of other posts on Legal Planet have noted various efforts by Republicans in Congress to stop or repeal EPA regulations. Those efforts are part of a broader movement by Tea Party organizations (organizations that are overwhelmingly Republican) to effectively eliminate environmental regulations in the United States. If there was any doubt about that …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia cap-and-trade a topic of interest at Durban
California’s cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions has gotten some interest here at the climate change negotiations in Durban. At a discussion of Australia’s new carbon pricing program, panelists discussed how Australia considered California’s economic modeling of cap-and-trade during the development of Australia’s system. And a panel on linking between different carbon and offset markets, …
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CONTINUE READINGLocal Clean Energy Policies
With cities and counties struggling to emerge from the down economy, clean energy development has been an economic and environmental bright spot. As Berkeley Law and UCLA Law discuss in the 2009 report “In Our Backyard,” California possesses numerous opportunities to deploy solar and wind energy facilities in existing urbanized areas, such as along highways …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Local Role for Promoting Energy Efficient Homes and Businesses
One of the most cost-effective ways to fight climate change is to make homes and businesses more energy efficient. Yet this is also one of the most difficult goals to achieve. In UC Berkeley and UCLA Law’s 2010 report “Saving Energy,” we found the key barriers to be the highly individualized nature of retrofitting buildings …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Cities and Counties Can Improve Public Transit
Flashy and expensive new transit projects, such as the Los Angeles subway or San Francisco’s proposed Central Subway, get a lot of media attention. But cities and counties have a lot of discretion to improve their existing public transit systems in sometimes relatively low-cost ways. The benefits, as we discuss in a UCLA / Berkeley …
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CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis’ “CEQA at 40” Conference Now Available Online
On November 4th, the U.C. Davis School of Law’s California Environmental Law & Policy Center hosted “CEQA at 40: A Look Back & Ahead.” Celebrating the 40th anniversary of California’s bedrock environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act, the conference drew some 400 attendees to U.C. Davis, with many more viewing the proceedings via a …
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CONTINUE READINGEnergy Storage in California by 2020: A New Report From the California Energy Commission
Yesterday, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program released a strategic assessment of energy storage technologies in California by 2020. The report was prepared by a three-campus University of California team, including Berkeley Law, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. Along with co-blogger Steve Weissman and Jessica Intrator (who did the …
CONTINUE READING2012 California Water Law Symposium: register now
Registration is now open for the 2012 California Water Law Symposium, to be held Saturday, January 21, 2012. The Symposium is a remarkable event, launched in 2005 by a consortium of law students from Bay Area schools. This eighth edition is made possible by the cooperative efforts of students from Berkeley Law (this year’s host), …
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