Academia

Yikes, Is It Pledge Week Already?

Yes, this is your biannual opportunity to invest in our work.

Like everyone else, I’m sure you find fundraising appeals annoying.  That’s why we hardly ever do them. But twice a year doesn’t seem like too much of an imposition, and this is a really important time. This is our first “ask” since the new Administration took office. There’s an especially critical need today for policy-driven research …

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UCLA Law Conference Webcast Today: State Climate Policy in the Trump Era

Symposium Features Sessions on California, Federal, and Multistate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policy

UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is hosting a full day event today on the timely topic of State Climate Policy in the Trump Era on Monday, May 22, 2017. There will be a live webcast for those who cannot join the event in person. Full details are linked here. And here’s …

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New Article Provides In-Depth Analysis of Limits to Presidential Authority Under the Antiquities Act

Analysis By Faculty at UCLA, University of Colorado, and UC Berkeley Concludes that Congress Alone, and Not the President, May Eliminate or Shrink National Monuments

[Updated June 12, 2017 to reflect availability of final published article] Mark Squillace of University of Colorado, Eric Biber of UC Berkeley, my UCLA colleague Nick Bryner, and I have co-authored a short academic article (published in Virginia Law Review Online) about the President’s authority to abolish or shrink national monuments.  This article provides detailed historical research and …

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What Are Law Schools Doing About Climate Change?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

Law schools produce volumes of scholarship on climate change and energy issues.  They also train the next generation of leaders in environmental law.  Those are the traditional roles, but many law schools are also engaging more directly with those issues.  I’ve put together a sample of some current programs, which illustrate the depth and diversity …

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U.C. Davis School of Law Launches New Water Justice Clinic

Environmental Justice Expert Camille Pannu Selected to Lead Pioneering Clinic

The U.C. Davis Martin Luther King, Jr. School of Law has launched an exciting new Water Justice Clinic designed to advocate for clean, healthy and adequate water supplies for all Californians.  The new Clinic is a project of the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, in partnership with the  California Environmental Law and …

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Whoops, We Almost Forgot to Ask You For Money!

In otherwise grim times, Berkeley & UCLA are supporting California’s forward environmental progress.

Unlike a lot of blogs, we don’t plague you with requests for money.  But it’s that time of year And this is your last chance for a deductible 2016 gift to support positive change in a really negative time for our country. Legal Planet is a joint product of the Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, …

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Update on the Litigation Over EPA’s Rule Controlling Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New Power Plants

UCLA Faculty File Amicus Brief on Behalf of Technological Innovation Experts

Late in 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency issued New Source Performance Standards to control greenhouse gas emissions from new and modified fossil-fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act. This regulation is a companion to the more-often-discussed Clean Power Plan rule, which addresses greenhouse gas emissions from existing sources in the power generation sector. Last …

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Surveying Climate Change Law

In only 25 years, a dynamic new field of law has taken root.

Climate Change Law, the first volume of Elgar’s Encyclopedia of Environmental Law has just appeared.  There are a number of excellent edited collections about aspects of climate change law. What distinguishes this one is that breadth of the coverage, including both international and domestic aspects of carbon reduction and adaptation to climate change. The book confirms how quickly climate change …

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Great environmental law scholarship

Some of the best articles in the field from 2014-15

Some of our readers may be interested in what is happening in environmental legal scholarship.  So I thought I’d post about the Land Use & Environment Law Review, which is Thomson Reuters/West Publishing’s peer-selected annual compendium of significant legal scholarship in land use and environmental law.  About sixty reviewers (made up of environmental law professors) …

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What is the Price of Equality?

Do Local Land Use Regulations Violate the Fair Housing Act?

One of the great things about studying land use is that it comprises so much of modern life. That creates some disciplinary problems: one UCLAW colleague who shall remain nameless (but comes from Pennsylvania) told me several years ago that he didn’t think land use was part of environmental law at all. (He has since …

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