Energy
Community Benefits Tools and Policy Drivers:
Select mechanisms can help ensure that energy projects deliver meaningful benefits for California communities
This is the third in a series of posts detailing CLEE’s new set of resources on Equitable Climate Infrastructure Investment. Communities and local and state governments are increasingly turning to community benefits tools to support an equitable climate transition, catalyze substantive long-term investments in community priorities, and achieve effective, durable projects. CLEE’s new report, Community Benefits Tools and California …
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CONTINUE READINGNEPA in the Supreme Court (Part II)
Here’s why the Supreme Court should reject radical arguments for limiting environmental impact statements.
Our last post explained the background of the Seven Counties NEPA case, which is currently pending in the Supreme Court. Today, we discuss the radical arguments that have been made in the case and why they should be rejected. NEPA requires that agencies consider the environmental effects of their projects, but the petitioners raise hairsplitting arguments to exclude obvious effects due to technicalities. Pleas for revising the law should be made to Congress, not to the Supreme Court.
CONTINUE READINGGrid Experts Weigh in on EPA’s Power Plant Emissions Rule
The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency stay in West Virginia v. EPA, a challenge to EPA’s rule. Our UCLA Law clinic submitted a brief on behalf of grid experts in the case at the D.C. Circuit.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized emissions standards for greenhouse gases from power plants under Clean Air Act, Section 111(d). The rule sets pollution limits for existing coal plants and some new gas plants based on carbon capture and sequestration. In West Virginia v. EPA, a spate of states and industry parties …
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CONTINUE READINGCommunity Solar: Compensation
Who gets the money? Compensation mechanisms are where a lot of the power of these programs resides, but naturally, also the debate.
This post is co-written by Naomi Caldwell (J.D. ’24, UCLA School of Law). Two recent posts explored community solar through the lens of its many potential benefits. (Part One on systemwide benefits and Part Two on local and individual benefits.) Today’s post follows the money, exploring community solar compensation mechanisms. The question of who makes …
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CONTINUE READINGA New Energy Project at UCLA Law
The Emmett Clean Energy Law & Leadership project will build a bridge between the existing expertise of UCLA’s energy law scholars and policymakers.
You don’t have to look beyond the front pages of newspapers, or beyond rooftops in your neighborhood to know that we are in the midst of a clean energy revolution, with renewable energy technologies dramatically decreasing in price and increasing in availability. These technologies promise to reduce energy cost burdens for households, as well as …
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CONTINUE READINGChina, Climate, and Clean Energy
China seems to have leap-frogged the U.S. on clean energy. We need to catch up.
In 2023, China accounted for about 60% of the world’s additions of solar and wind power, and of electric vehicles. The U.S. will need to make a major effort to catch up. Otherwise, we risk being shut out of important global markets and giving China an opening to influence developing countries.
CONTINUE READINGElectric Shared Mobility:
Program Design Elements Can Produce More Equitable, Durable, and Successful Projects
Shared mobility—an umbrella term for any transportation mode shared among multiple passengers—has the potential to accelerate transportation electrification, air quality, and greenhouse gas reduction goals, meet the needs of underserved communities that most lack mobility access, and advance broader mobility equity goals. CLEE’s report, Electric Shared Mobility: California Lessons Learned for Equity in Program Design, …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Ins and Outs of Kennedy’s Environmental Positions
His campaign website is a mashup of very different perspectives, from “back to the earth” to tech bro.
Working through his website seemed to reveal a broad effort to combine distrust of government and big business), belief in free markets, and valuing nature and the land for their own sakes. Kennedy offers an unusual blend of Sixties “back to the land” environmentalism with Tech Bro libertarianism.
CONTINUE READINGWhat Would Climate Policy Look Like Under One-Party Conservative Rule?
You only need to look at Texas or Florida for the answer: a complete erasure of climate action.
This is not to say that unified control of the federal government by the hard right would entirely halt the progress of clean energy. Just that, if Florida and Texas are any guides, they would do their best to make that happen and to maximize use of what Trump has called the liquid gold under our feet.
CONTINUE READINGJustin Pidot: Manchin’s Latest and Last Run at Promoting Fossil Fuels through a Permitting Reform Bill
His proposal is a bad deal on climate and an afront to environmental justice
Last week, Senator Manchin unveiled his latest permitting bill, negotiated with Senator Barrasso and set to be marked up by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Wednesday. After recently completing a 3 ½ year stint as general counsel at the White House Counsel of Environmental Quality, I recognize that continuing to improve …
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