California

Guest Blogger Ken Alex: Oil and Transportation in California

Post #4 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown

[This is the fourth post in a series expressing my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world. The introductory post provides an overview and some general context.] In 2015, Jerry Brown challenged the State to reduce oil usage in the transportation sector by 50% by 2030.  …

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Guest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Building Energy Efficiency Mandate

Post #3 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown

[This is the third post in a series expressing my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world. The introductory post provides an overview and some general context.] Energy usage associated with buildings is substantial. There are different ways to calculate it, but the California …

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Guest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard

Post #2 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown

[This is the second post in a series expressing my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world.  The introductory post provides an overview and some general context.] SB 350 (2015) requires that California’s investor and municipal owned utilities provide 50% of their customer’s electricity …

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Guest Blogger Ken Alex: California’s Vision on Climate Change

Post #1 in a Series on California Climate Policy by Ken Alex, Senior Policy Advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown

California accounts for about one percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. As the Brown Administration enters its final year, I want to set out my view of why California’s actions on climate change are so important and how they will change the world.  I thank the faculty at Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy, …

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U.C. Davis to Host Conference Commemorating California Air Resources Board’s 50th Anniversary

CA Governor Jerry Brown, former USEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, CARB Chair Mary Nichols Featured

On Friday, January 19, 2018, the University of California, Davis, will host a major conference commemorating the California Air Resources Board’s 50th anniversary.  The conference represents a three-way partnership between UCD School of Law’s California Environmental Law and Policy Center, UCD’s Institute for Transportation Studies and CARB. Since its creation in 1967, CARB has been …

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Wetlands, WOTUS and California

California Regulators Can and Should Adopt Strong State Wetlands Protection Rules

For the past year, an overriding concern of many Californians has been whether and how state legislators and regulators can fill the environmental law and policy gap left by a Trump Administration that is in the process of reversing a host of Obama-era environmental rules and that has otherwise largely abandoned the field of environmental …

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Environmental Law Professors File Amicus Brief in Defense of Technology-Forcing in the California Supreme Court

Professors oppose efforts to limit the Legislature’s authority to enact laws protecting the public health and safety of CA residents

My colleague Sean Hecht and I, along with eleven other California environmental law professors, filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court this week in support of the California Legislature’s authority to enact technology-forcing statutes. The underlying case, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., et al. v. State of California,  involves a gun control law …

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A Sense of Urgency at COP 23

Guest post by Alexandra Gay, UCLA Law student

Christiana Figueres, the former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC who is widely credited with the success of COP 21 in Paris in 2015, launched a global initiative earlier this year called Mission 2020. The overall goal of the initiative is to ensure that global CO2 emissions reach a “turning point” by 2020 and begin to …

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The Place of Pruitt’s Nightmares

How is California fighting climate change? Let me count the ways.

In his worst dreams, Scott Pruitt must find himself surrounded by solar panels and windmills, pursued by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator himself, who has returned from the future to stop him before he can doom the planet.  When he awakes, he realizes to his relief that he’s safe in bed well outside the borders of …

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High Time to Fix California’s Affordable Housing Crisis

California Political Leaders Announce Historic Housing Accord

The Sacramento Bee reports that California Governor Jerry Brown and the Democratic leaders of the State Senate and Assembly have reached an 11th-hour agreement to address California’s chronic, steadily growing affordable housing crisis.  (The California Legislature’s 2017 session concludes in mid-September.)  That’s good news indeed–and a most welcome (if overdue) proposed fix to one of …

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