AB 32

California Slowing Down on Cap and Trade

Yesterday, Mary Nichols slipped a bit of a bombshell  into testimony before the California Senate Select Committee on the Environment, the Economy and Climate Change.  She announced that the state’s Air Resources Board is planning to “initiate” the cap and trade program in 2012 but not “start the requirements for compliance”  until 2013.  This effectively …

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Air Resources Board Releases New Environmental Assessment of Cap and Trade to Comply with Judge’s Order

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is covering all its bases in responding to a judge’s order that CARB violated  the California Enviornmental Quality Act (CEQA) in adopting its scoping plan to implement AB 32 (the state’s  climate change legislation).  As I reported last week,  CARB has  won an order from the appeals court allowing the state …

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Dueling Orders and Lots of Confusion in AB 32 Case

Yesteday, I described a California Court of Appeals order lifting the injunction preventing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) from implementing its cap and trade program.  The order was apparently issued last Friday afternoon.   Even in this age of instantaneous communication, however, apparently neither the Superior Court judge in the case, Earnest H. Goldsmith, nor the lead …

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Breaking News: AB 32 Cap and Trade Program Allowed to Proceed Pending Appeal

The 1st Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal has temporarily stayed (in other words lifted) the trial court’s injunction preventing the California Air Resources Board from implementing its cap and trade program for greenhouse gas emitters.  As Cara blogged previously, the trial court in Association of Irritated Residents v. ARB issued a writ of …

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Sierra Club asks Gov. Brown to re-examine AB 32 cap-and-trade

On May 9, Sierra Club requested that Governor Jerry Brown “re-evaluate” the cap-and-trade rule promulgated by the California Air Resources Board.  The Sacramento Bee has some initial reactions and you can read the original letter here.  As noted in our earlier posts, CARB’s cap-and-trade rule has come under judicial scrutiny and its status is somewhat …

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Evaluating the claim that future environmental regulations have already made California the nation’s worst place to do business

I’m reasonably sure that chiefexecutive.net’s annual listing of “Best/Worst States for Business“ isn’t most people’s go-to source for information comparing various states’ business climates.  Nonetheless, the website’s annual survey just came out, and the Sacramento Bee is covering it as a story (with a promise of more coverage to come).  California — as usual — …

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The New Public Trust Climate Cases

Per the New York Times this morning, a group of environmental organizations called Our Children’s Trust has filed a lawsuit against the state of California, arguing for protection of the atmosphere under the public trust doctrine (about which I blogged a couple of days ago).  A few preliminary reactions after having read the complaint quickly: …

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Reading the Mary Nichols (carbon) tea leaves

It’s undoubtedly dangerous to try to read too much into short media quotes.  But Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, is in a better position than most to judge (and to influence) the political winds on the future of the State’s cap-and-trade program.   Here’s her latest public statement on the issue, made during an appearance last …

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Will AB 32 Regulations Move Ahead Despite the Court Ruling?

We’ve extensively covered the litigation over California’s landmark climate change law, AB 32.  Now, per the Clean Energy Report, CARB might be able to move ahead with the cap-and-trade regulations anyway: the trial court might very well stay its decision pending appeal, which is not unheard of, and according to the state’s attorneys, occurs automatically upon …

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The recent court decision blocking California’s scoping plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: One-stop shopping for recent Legal Planet commentary

Several of the bloggers on Legal Planet have been commenting extensively on the recent California court decision that will block the California Air Resources Board from moving forward with its AB 32 Scoping Plan and related regulations.  I’ve provided links below to a series of our posts on this decision. The court, ruling on a …

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