Air Quality
Nightmare on Penn Ave (Part 2)
After a year of Trump 2.0, here’s how things stand.
Eight years ago almost to the day, I wrote a post titled, “One Year and Counting.” I was writing at the end of Trump’s first year in office. And here we are again, one year into a second Trump Administration. Trump’s basically deregulatory strategy has remained largely unchanged. But there are some notable differences in the situations then and now. I closed my 2017 post with this: “One characteristic of the Trump Administration is a ceaseless stream of controversies and dramas. But generally speaking, the amount of actual legal change has been much more limited, because the system is designed to provide checks on administrative and legislative action.” It remains to be seen how well those checks will function this time around.
CONTINUE READINGIs This the End of Cost-Benefit Analysis?
Trump’s EPA is effectively abandoning economic analysis
Maybe the Administration means to keep cost-benefit analysis in place for some other kinds of regulations at EPA or elsewhere. But if the courts uphold the EPA’s refusal to quantify the enormous harms caused by air pollution, it’s hard to see an argument for quantifying many other regulatory benefits. In other settings, environmentalists might applaud the repeal of cost-benefit analysis. In the current setting, however, the purpose is all too plain: to make it easier for the Administration to ignore the ways it is endangering human life and health.
CONTINUE READINGEveryday Christmas: The Gift of the Commons
Clean air. Clean water. We receive these public goods every day without payment
One of the Christmas classics is the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, Stewart’s character, is despondent about his life until he learns how much he has unknowingly helped others and how grateful they are. It’s heartwarming, if also a bit corny. There’s a flip side to that story: the need to remember …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Baffling Free Pass for Coke Oven Pollution
Even for the Trump Administration, this seems really weird.
Trump just gave coke ovens a free pass for their toxic air pollution. What makes this so weird is not Trump’s reversal of a public policy protecting public health or of an action taken under Biden. Both of those are routine these days. Nor is it weird that Trump did so without the slightest factual basis. That’s also par for the course these days. What is weird is doing this after Trump’s own EPA director, who has no evident scruples about favoring industry, said no. There is no indication Trump was even aware of this fact. And it is even weirder, in that industry didn’t have a compliance problem in the first place and would save only pocket change from the postponement.
CONTINUE READINGThe Lingering Legal Issue of California’s Limits on Vehicle Emissions
The issues are complex, but the state has some strong legal arguments on its side.
The odds are high that the Trump Administration will withdraw California’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks – and along with it, California’s effort to become all-electric. This is a crucial issue for the state because transportation accounts for about 40% of the state’s emissions. It’s also crucial for the other states have exercised the option of adopting California standards. The issues are complex, involving an unusual statutory scheme. Here’s what you need to know, and why I think California should win this fight.
CONTINUE READINGA Strangely Important Case about… Boilers?
UCLA Law’s clinic files Ninth Circuit brief in defense of core air pollution control authority.
When I think about sources responsible for LA’s air pollution, I don’t first think about water heaters, boilers, and other medium-scale appliances. But it turns out that appliances that burn natural gas to heat water are, in aggregate, an incredibly significant source of nitrogen oxides (NOx), an air pollutant that worsens smog and causes serious …
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CONTINUE READINGSome Good News About the El Segundo Chevron Explosion
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
When the state’s second-largest refinery emitted a fireball into the heavens last week, it was bad. But it wasn’t all bad. The “incident” at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo was a good reminder that air pollution is present during the entire life cycle of oil and gas products, from when it comes out of …
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CONTINUE READINGWebinar: Climate Policy without the Endangerment Finding
UCLA Law’s “Up in the Air” webinar explores the future of federal and state climate policy if the endangerment finding is repealed.
As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin rushes to rescind the endangerment finding — which some have called “the Holy Grail of U.S. climate policy” — the UCLA Emmett Institute hosted an expert panel discussion on the reasoning and ramifications of such a move. The effort underlines “an extraordinarily dark time in U.S. environmental politics,” …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia and Brazil Advance Joint Climate Action
The new MOU announced at New York Climate Week increased engagement and joint climate leadership ahead of COP30.
This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom led a high-level meeting with Brazil’s Environment Secretary Marina Silva to expand the long-running partnerships that exist between the Golden State and the largest country of Latin America. The meeting resulted in a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between both governments to continue to collaborate on climate action. Although …
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CONTINUE READINGNew CARB Chair, New CARB Mandate
Lauren Sanchez has been named to the state’s most important climate job.
About 15 years ago, when presenting about California’s then-new climate change law AB32, I used to show a slide with six words on it — “Why Mary Nichols Rules the World”— along with a huge photo of Mary. The slide let me talk about the enormous authority and discretion bestowed by AB32 on one agency, …
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