California
California Gov. Brown on Climate Efforts
“California isn’t resisting—we’re pioneering an intelligent path forward”
Yesterday’s session at the annual Navigating American Carbon World conference was a bit of a California lovefest, with relief and gratitude spilling over for the state’s leadership on climate policy. The crowd was California’s choir, and Governor Jerry Brown delivered the keynote address to two standing ovations. It’s rare to hear a politician sound, by …
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CONTINUE READINGCourt of Appeal Confirms California Cap-and-Trade is Not a Tax
It’s voluntary and it provides valuable commodities to purchasers
With the feds backsliding (or worse) on climate regulation, the efforts of California and other states to tackle climate change are especially prominent and critical. So it’s a welcome time for today’s good news for California climate regulators: The state court of appeal has rejected industry’s challenge to California’s cap-and-trade program. That program is one …
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CONTINUE READINGCan California keep its federal lands public?
SB 50, introduced in State Senate, seeks to retain public ownership of federal lands in the state
There’s been a fair amount of national debate lately about whether federal public lands in the West should be transferred to state or private ownership. Rep. Chaffetz (R) from Utah had introduced a bill to transfer millions of acres of federal land in a range of Western states to private or state ownership – he …
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CONTINUE READING“States’ Rights” and Environmental Law: California on the Front Lines
EPA’s Assault on Air Quality Protection Will Aim at California’s Standards, While Other States Have Given Up Their Authority to Protect Public Health and the Environment More Strictly
This article just published in the Atlantic explains well one of the many ways that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may attempt to deeply harm our environment for decades to come: through declining to grant, or revoking, the waivers that allow California to regulate air pollution from new motor vehicle engines more strictly than the federal government does. …
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CONTINUE READINGScott Pruitt, Senator Harris and the California Question
California leadership in peril?
Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, elided many questions yesterday and made some somewhat surprising commitments to appease Senate Democrats in response to others (acknowledging that humans are at least partially responsible for climate change; saying he’ll use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases). But his response to …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Does a Trump Presidency Portend for California’s Environmental Policies?
Constitutional Issues Loom Large in Future, Likely Federal-California Legal Confrontations
Sensing political storm clouds ahead, California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday issued a statement on the presidential election results that concludes: “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time–devastating climate change.” Several of my Legal Planet colleagues have recently posted thoughtful commentary on what Donald Trump’s …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Job For California: Energy & Climate Research
If Trump guts research funding, California should step into the breach.
During the campaign, Trump said he would save $100 billion by cutting climate programs. His campaign staff referred as support to a report, which said that 75% of the funding was energy related and included “about 68 percent for energy technology, 23 percent for science, 8 percent for international assistance and 1 percent for adaptation …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Steadily-Dying Sierra Nevadas
Drought, Bark Beetle Infestation, Climate Change Imperil Sierra Pine Forests
Like over 600 other environmental lawyers, professors, law students and regulators, I attended the 25th annual Environmental Law Conference at Yosemite last weekend. As always, the Conference–sponsored by the California State Bar’s Environmental Law Section–was a big success, filled with inspirational speakers and thought-provoking panels. But the major topic of conversation–during the Conference proceedings, in …
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CONTINUE READINGOf Initiative Wars, Plastic Bags and Poison Pills
Deciphering California’s (Intentionally) Confusing Plastic Bag Propositions
California’s longstanding efforts to eliminate single-use plastic bags from the marketplace and the environment have finally reached California voters. The November 8th general election ballot contains a breathtaking 17 separate propositions–16 proposed initiative measures and one referendum measure. Propositions 65 and 67 both deal with the same subject–a proposed ban on single-use plastic bags. Those dueling measures …
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CONTINUE READINGState regulation of environmental harms on federal lands
California Supreme Court case indicates substantial authority for states to act
Sean has already reported on the recent Rinehart decision by the California Supreme Court, in which the Court concluded that a state law imposing a temporary moratorium on the use of suction dredge equipment in California waterways was not preempted by federal mining law. Here, I just want to add to Sean’s excellent summary by …
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