California Attorney General

Ensuring Public Access to California Waterways–In Plain Language

New California State Lands Commission Public Access Guide Required Reading for Coastal Enthusiasts

California residents are passionate about their coastal and inland waterways–and especially their ability to access and enjoy these natural resources.  It was concern over being “walled off from the coast” by private development that prompted California voters in 1972 to approve an initiative measure that created the California Coastal Commission and led to California’s Coastal …

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Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Wins Big in Ninth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals Rejects Challenge to TRPA’s Regional Plan

This week the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) won a major legal victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  A unanimous three-judge panel of that court rejected environmentalists’ challenge to TRPA’s adopted Regional Plan for the Lake Tahoe Basin in Sierra Club v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.   The Ninth Circuit decision effectively …

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BREAKING NEWS: Another West Coast Win for PACE Energy Financing

Almost a year later, California wins again in the effort to reverse a federal agency’s 2010 decision that decimated PACE, a promising financing program for residential energy efficiency and renewable investments. Federal District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled today that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment requirement when …

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A Judicial Setback for PACE Energy Efficiency and Renewables Financing

Many moons ago, I blogged about the saga of the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing program and the lawsuits to preserve it. As a quick review, PACE allows municipal governments to use funds from the bond market to help property owners finance energy efficiency retrofits and renewable energy arrays on their property. The property …

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The California Attorney General race and the environment

This New York Times article notes why the California Attorney General’s race is very important for our state and national environmental and energy policies.  As a close observer of that office’s work on environmental issues and as a former California deputy attorney general myself, I believe the reporter is surely correct.  This race will matter from …

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The Environment and the California AG Race

My original plan was to do four posts, each covering a major party candidate for Governor or Senator.  But the California Attorney General race is also significant in environmental terms.  Under Jerry Brown and his predecessor Bill Lockyer, the AG has been a major player on environmental issues — in particular, providing national leadership on …

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