Biodiversity & Species
Supreme Court Update: PEPTO and Rinehart
Supreme Court denies review in two important environmental law cases
Last week the US Supreme Court brought closure to two cases we have been following here at Legal Planet. First is a case I had blogged about in the past – People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – a challenge to the constitutionality of the federal Endangered …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Anthropocene and private law
Areas such as torts and property will face significant challenges
I’ve posted about how the Anthropocene will see major changes in how humans affect our planet, and how those changes will have major impacts on human society, triggering substantially larger interventions by the legal system in a wide range of individual behavior. In this post, I want to spin out some of the implications of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe science of the Anthropocene
Human impacts on global natural systems are large and diverse
Climate change is well known now as a major impact of humans on the planet. But climate change is only one of a wide range of ways in which humans are dramatically changing natural systems at the regional, continental and planetary levels. For instance, greenhouse gas emissions are the driver of anthropogenic climate change. But …
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CONTINUE READINGLaw in the Anthropocene Era
Human impacts on our planet will trigger changes in our legal system
As becomes more and more evident every day, climate change is increasingly a dominant and sometimes devastating factor for human society and natural systems on a global scale. Much has been, and will continue to be, written about how we as a society can reduce the future impacts of climate change and adapt to the …
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CONTINUE READINGWhere the Wild Things Are
For endangered species, don’t think Alaska or Montana. Think Hawaii and California. And Alabama.
When we think about preserving nature in the United States, we tend to think of the country’s great wilderness areas in places like Alaska and the Rockies. We don’t think about Alabama or Puerto Rico, for instance. But in terms of biodiversity protection, this is almost the opposite of the truth. By and large, the …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: HR 4239
House bill would give states control of oil and gas leasing process, weaken Presidential power to restrict leasing
Tom Schumann drafted this blog post. Provisions tucked in a House oil and gas development bill would repeal one of the oldest conservation laws and scale back another. The provisions show House Republicans working to make rollbacks by the Trump Administration permanent, consistent with the administration’s “America First” energy campaign. H.R. 4239, reported out of …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: ANWR and Monuments Updates
Updates on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Monuments
Two updates on issues that we have been following. First, the Senate passed a tax bill that opens up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development – though an initial version of that provision which would have relaxed environmental review of development in the refuge was stripped out. The bill likely will …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Top 10 Things to Be Thankful For (Environmental Version)
It hasn’t been a good year, to say the least. But there are some things to be thankful for.
Overall, it’s been a pretty lousy year since last Thanksgiving. If you care about the environment, there are a lot of things NOT to be thankful for, or rather one big thing in the form of He Who Must Not Be Named. But there are also some things for which we should feel thankful, many of …
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CONTINUE READINGESA Under Attack. Again.
The Washington Post tomorrow is running an Op Ed written with Peter Alagona, a colleague in environmental studies at UCSB. We were approached by the Post and asked to write a piece addressing the current raft of bills that seek to weaken the Endangered Species Act and sharing our views about alternatives. With a tight limit …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Resilient Federal Forests Act
Bill to reduce environmental protections for timber management on federal lands passes House
The Resilient Federal Forests Act (RFFA), H.R. 2936—which would curb environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for a variety of forest management activities on National Forest and BLM lands—passed the House November 1. (We previously wrote about a version of this bill in committee here.) NEPA requires agencies to consider whether proposed …
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