California
Climate Issues in the 2026 Governor’s Race: Electricity Affordability
Second in a series of posts outlining key challenges and opportunities facing California’s next governor.
Skyrocketing electricity costs pose a formidable political and economic barrier as California pushes to decarbonize its power supply and electrify homes and transportation. The stakes for the incoming governor are incredibly high: average residential rates for large investor-owned utilities (IOUs) increased 8%-10% annually over the last decade, far outpacing the 3.5% inflation rate. While the …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Issues in the 2026 Governor’s Race: Transportation
First in a series of posts outlining key challenges and opportunities facing California’s next governor.
In collaboration with California Environmental Voters, CLEE is leading a nonpartisan initiative to educate all candidates running for governor, as well as the public, on critical climate, energy, and environmental issues. In February, CLEE and CEV co-hosted a candidate forum featuring 90 minutes of discussion on these issues. And we’ve launched a public website, www.climatevote.org, …
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CONTINUE READINGMaintaining California’s Environmental Leadership
California’s 2026 Gubernatorial Race
California will elect a new governor in 2026. The primary is June 2 and the top two candidates will face off on November 3. If you are in California, make sure you are registered to vote! This election comes as a pivotal time for California’s environmental leadership. California’s next governor must be ready to step …
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CONTINUE READINGMilestones in State Climate Policy
The first efforts to clean up the grid date back forty years, but state climate policy really got moving at the turn of the century.
The federal government’s interventions in climate policy have been erratic, driven by political polarization and alternating control of the White House. In contrast, state governments have engaged in steady campaigns to reduce carbon emissions. Some people seem to think this has been a recent innovation, but it has now been ongoing for a generation. Here are some the key milestone along the way, closing with Trump’s pledge to bulldoze state policies that don’t fall in line with his priorities.
CONTINUE READINGCrafting a Roadmap for Zonal Decarbonization in California
A new series of briefs from the UCLA Emmett Institute offers legal insights for the gas transition. First up: SB 1221.
California has a $43 billion problem: that is the estimated cost of maintaining the state’s gas network over the next twenty years. That is an astronomical amount to spend on what state policy dictates will eventually become stranded assets: California won’t be able to meet its ambitious climate goals unless it moves away from natural gas altogether, so retirement of these assets is …
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CONTINUE READINGUsing Maps to Make Housing Politics Easier
Setting clear borders as to where upzoning to advance housing would apply may help ease the politics of housing policy
A recent article in the SF Chronicle highlighted how it has been easier for housing advocates to get upzoning reforms that facilitate housing production in Oregon – with the upzoning provisions in Oregon having significantly fewer exceptions and carveouts than comparable provisions in California. The result is that Portland has seen more movement in housing …
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CONTINUE READINGHow California (And Other States) Can Drive Demand for Clean Trucks
CLEE and the Emmett Institute release new report today and will hold Jan. 13 webinar with Energy Commissioner Nancy Skinner keynote.
This post is co-authored by CLEE fellow Marie Grimm. California’s policies to phase out polluting diesel trucks with zero-emission models took a major hit this year from the federal government. In June 2025, Congress voted to overturn federal permission for California’s zero-emission truck mandate (although this vote is now subject to litigation). In July, Congress …
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CONTINUE READINGA Full-Court Press on Methane, Climate in the Governor’s Race
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Replacing high-carbon fossil fuels with clean energy while also adapting to climate change — that’s the ballgame. But we may not get to the ninth inning in one piece if we don’t deal with methane first. That’s one takeaway from the COP30 UN climate summit. Pick your metaphor — and there are many — but …
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CONTINUE READINGGood COP, Bad COP in Belém, Brazil
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The United Nations mega-conference focused on climate change known as COP (“Conference of the Parties”) is well underway in Belém, Brazil with 193 countries plus the EU, 57 heads of state, 39 ministers and hundreds of governors, mayors, and local officials participating. Two of my UCLA Law colleagues are on the ground in Belém this …
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CONTINUE READINGAt a Loss for Words? Resist Climate Silence
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
A few years ago, I was writing about how President Joe Biden was flying around the country to promote his landmark climate law without uttering the word “climate.” Seems so quaint. Now, we find ourselves in a place where “climate change” is on a list of banned words maintained by the U.S. Energy Department, along …
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