endangered species
Recreational marijuana legalization in California
Will a proposed ballot initiative on recreational marijuana legalization in California help the environment
In the wake of the enactment by the legislature of a regulatory structure for medical marijuana, it looks like voters in 2016 will probably be able to decide whether to legalize recreational use as well. Leading advocates for legalization of recreational marijuana have submitted a language for a ballot initiative to the California Secretary of …
Continue reading “Recreational marijuana legalization in California”
CONTINUE READINGMixed results in CA medical marijuana legislation
New state law to regulate medical marijuana makes important environmental progress, still much to be done
California is moving towards marijuana legalization. This is a good and important thing for a whole host of reasons, but one important reason is the environmental impact of unregulated and illegal marijuana cultivation on the environment – something that has been discussed both in the news and here on Legal Planet. Those impacts include diversion …
Continue reading “Mixed results in CA medical marijuana legislation”
CONTINUE READINGGoing, Going, Gone
Despite it’s depressing subject, Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction is a great read. She travels around the world, from a “hotel” for endangered frogs in Panama to an outdoor biodiversity experiment in the Peruvian rainforest to an endangered rhino’s rectal exam in Cincinnati. Yet, there’s no denying that the topic is a downer. The title implies that we …
Continue reading “Going, Going, Gone”
CONTINUE READINGCongress Moves Forward on the Farm Bill
Congress conference committee considers Farm Bill, including numerous provisions with serious environmental consequences
Finally. There is a Farm Bill conference committee, and it began meeting last week. The Farm Bill is the vehicle for our major federal farm and food policy, including commodity subsidies, crop insurance, food assistance, and farm conservation. Congress let the 2008 Farm Bill expire on September 30, 2012, and we have been living on extensions ever since. Although the most …
Continue reading “Congress Moves Forward on the Farm Bill”
CONTINUE READINGGood environmental data matters for environmental litigation
If you aren’t reading Dave Owen’s blog posts over at Environmental Law Prof Blog, you should be. His most recent post is about a recent Endangered Species Act (ESA) case in Texas: Environmental plaintiffs sued, arguing that the state of Texas had allowed too many water withdrawals upstream from the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, a critical breeding …
Continue reading “Good environmental data matters for environmental litigation”
CONTINUE READINGOn “pretextual” listings of species for protection under the Endangered Species Act
The folks over at Pacific Legal Foundation’s (PLF) blog have been nice enough to post about an article that I co-authored with Berry Brosi at Emory University (paywall protected, unfortunately!). The article investigates the role that citizen petitions and citizen suits play in the process of listing species for protection under the Endangered Species Act …
CONTINUE READINGBelieving in Climate Change
For many years, I didn’t really believe in climate change. Not in the sense of skeptics or deniers. It’s not like I didn’t intellectually understand the science behind climate change, and didn’t understand in my head that greenhouse gases were contributing to significant alterations in global climate systems, and that those alterations have the potential …
Continue reading “Believing in Climate Change”
CONTINUE READINGGood news for Hawaiian wetland birds
Regular readers know that we try to report good news when we can. This positive report caught my eye because I recently returned from an extended stay in the islands, where I had the opportunity to see these beautiful birds. Conservation magazine reports on a recent study showing that populations of three endangered Hawaiian wetland …
Continue reading “Good news for Hawaiian wetland birds”
CONTINUE READINGA Risky FWS Proposal to Limit ESA Petitions
The Endangered Species Act has long been a lightning-rod for controversy. The last administration tried to significantly circumscribe the scope of the ESA in a wide range of ways (see, e.g, here). The Obama Administration up to this point in time has in general sharply contrasted with its predecessor in ESA management, including listing a …
Continue reading “A Risky FWS Proposal to Limit ESA Petitions”
CONTINUE READINGThe BP Deepwater Horizon Blowout and the Social and Environmental Erosion of the Louisiana Coast
In a lecture that I gave last week at the University of Minnesota, I discussed how the Louisiana Coast was under grave threat from erosion, rising seas, and pollution even before the explosion on the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon platform. Whole communities have vanished under the rising water, and the livelihoods and communities of …
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
The Drain is a roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet delivered to your Inbox once a week.
