California OLD

Allowance distribution in California’s cap-and-trade program (Part II: Industry)

Yesterday I developed a basic overview of the different categories of allowances in California’s GHG trading program. As promised, this post considers the number of allowances that California will freely give to specific industries. Why do we care about industry allowances? First, allowances have value and the Air Resources Board (CARB) has chosen to give …

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Allowance distribution in California’s cap-and-trade program (Part I)

Yesterday, I described California’s GHG cap-and-trade auction and the likely constraints on the auction clearing price. Today I want to switch gears to the allowance distribution. As summarized in our recent paper on California’s auction revenue, once you know the number of allowances available at auction and the auction clearing price, you can estimate revenue. …

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Auction prices in California’s cap-and-trade program

This week, the Emmett Center released a new paper on the potential legal constraints on revenue generated from California’s upcoming greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade auction. In that paper, we provide a general overview of the cap-and-trade auction mechanism and discuss the potential revenue raised. I would like to expand on that discussion in a series …

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Will California’s cap-and-trade program get 85% of its reductions from offsets?

Will California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program meet 85% of its required reductions with offsets? That is the claim made in a complaint recently filed in a California Superior Court, seeking to throw out California’s offset regulations. (Citizens Climate Lobby v. CARB.) The complaint cites a NY Times article from 2011, in which someone from …

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Tunnel vision in environmental law and policy

One of the reasons that environmental law and policy is so interesting, and so challenging, is that it is very, very difficult to reduce what we mean by “environmental quality” to one single metric.  A couple of recent posts by a leading progressive policy blogger (Matt Yglesias) make this point very well.

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New Pritzker Brief on Green Chemistry

If you have not yet seen it, I encourage you to check out our newest Pritzker Policy Brief, on California’s Green Chemistry regulations. Written by our own Timothy Malloy, Toxics in Consumer Products takes a critical look at these new regulations. Fellow blogger Matt Kahn mentioned the other day that he was a big fan of California’s …

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California’s Attorney General Steps Up Environmental Enforcement Efforts

A recent development worth noting is California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ increased profile when it comes to environmental enforcement. Harris, the first woman and minority Attorney General in California history, had a busy first year in office.  Her razor-thin election win in November 2010 took over a month to be confirmed, delaying her transition from …

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Guest blogger David Pettit: In the Weeds with GHGs

This post, by David Pettit of the Natural Resources Defense Council, is part of an occasional series by guest bloggers. As Ann Carlson and Rick Frank have previously blogged, on December 29th 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill ruled that California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. …

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The Privatization of State Parks & Ocean Management in California–And Why That’s a Good Thing

California boasts the nation’s largest state park system–over 1.5 million acres of natural, historical and cultural resources contained in 278 separate, state-owned parks that attract over 80 million visitors annually.  But California’s extensive system of state-owned parks, beaches and marine reserves is in crisis–a victim of draconian budget cuts, chronic under-staffing and over $1 billion …

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Federal Court Invalidates California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard

U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill has ruled that the California Air Resources Board’s pioneering Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a key component of California’s multifaceted strategy to reduce the state’s aggregate greenhouse gas emissions under AB 32, is unconstitutional.  In his December 29th ruling in Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Goldstene, the Fresno-based federal judge issued …

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