UCLA
Scrap Yards, Scrapped Enforcement?
The City of Los Angeles’s regulatory tools exist to protect communities from metal recycling hazards—but they’re rarely invoked.
This post was co-written by UCLA Law student Kate Inman (J.D., 2026). Throughout California’s Senate District 20, roughly thirty scrap metal recycling facilities sit in the industrial corridors running alongside residential housing. For the working-class, majority-Latino communities living blocks away, the legal system has been slow to respond. Drive through Sun Valley or Pacoima on …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the Bleakest Earth Day, Trust the Undercurrent of Resistance
The first Earth Day succeeded because of a decade of preparatory work. Here are the lessons for us in 2026.
The 56th Earth Day may also be the bleakest. Wave upon wave is crashing upon our system of ecological protections. But having spent years studying the full sweep of American environmental legal history, we can say with confidence: the bigger the wave, the stronger the undercurrent. First, at a time when advocates for the environment …
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CONTINUE READINGLessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of U.S. Environmental Law
UCLA’s Alejandro Camacho discusses his new book and the lessons we can learn from prior generations of environmental advocates.
This Earth Day, environmental advocates are looking backward as well as forward. With the U.S. federal government so dramatically overhauling environmental policy, history shows how American social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to preserve public lands and pass laws protecting human health. “I’ve been trying to look through the …
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CONTINUE READING‘Smog and Sunshine’: Achieving Clean Air in California
UCLA’s Ann Carlson discusses her new book and how the state can address federal efforts to undo its emissions standards.
Los Angeles is famous for both sunshine and smog. Turns out the two are related. Ozone pollution is caused by the interaction of sunlight and the chemicals that come out of vehicle tailpipes and factory smokestacks. But when Ann Carlson’s family first moved to Southern California, nobody knew what caused smog and there were no laws …
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CONTINUE READINGDemocratic Governors and the A-word
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The governors and legislative leaders of several blue states on the East Coast are obsessed with the A-word: affordability. So much so that several of them are looking to pull money away from state programs that boost renewable energy and energy efficiency, as a shortcut to try to lower electricity costs. In Maryland, Rhode Island, …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Does Wildfire Resilience Cost?
A new UCLA Law report focuses on wildfire liability costs and wildfire mitigation costs in the transmission context.
When it comes to updating transmission lines and other wildfire-related costs, how much of the burden should fall on utility ratepayers? That’s one of the questions at the heart of a new report published by the UCLA Emmett Institute. First, some context: California saw its hottest temperatures ever recorded in March this year. With a hotter climate come more frequent and …
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CONTINUE READINGWe are Hitting a Major Methane Milestone
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
This year, we celebrate 250 years since its discovery. No, I don’t mean America (though plans are underway to celebrate the semiquincentennial this July.) I’m talking about methane — that colorless, odorless, flammable and short-lived but super potent greenhouse gas that is helping heat the planet faster than carbon dioxide. It was 250 years ago …
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CONTINUE READINGEarth is Getting Darker. Here’s Why That’s Alarming
Some climate scientists are calling attention to yet another alarming recent climate trend: Earth’s declining reflectivity and what it may mean for feedback effects on future warming.
Some recent Earth observations are spreading new alarm among climate scientists. The observations have been reported in many scientific and environmental outlets, and have provoked a fair amount of confusion and some misrepresentation. Some scientists have been informally calling these observations “the most important climate risk you’ve never heard of.” But they have not yet …
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CONTINUE READINGAffordability Is Everywhere
How affordability concerns are informing recent developments in electricity, clean energy, and housing policy.
Affordability concerns are increasingly top-of-mind for advocates, academics, and public officials with regard to electricity generation and pricing, the transition away from fossil fuel extraction, and affordable housing. Public support for improving the grid, transitioning to a clean energy economy, and expanding the supply of housing depends on whether policymakers can ensure that the costs …
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CONTINUE READINGA Chance to Rebuild Better
AB 2385 by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris would help local governments spring into action after disasters.
Fourteen months after the Palisades and Eaton fires, many Angelenos remain uncertain if they will ever return to the neighborhoods they call home and policymakers are still grappling with how to help rebuild. Back in September, I wrote about a drafting wrinkle in state law that’s standing in the way of local governments’ ability to …
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