California
The Trump Administration’s Arbitrary Review of National Monuments
Zinke’s review has been anything but transparent
Last Thursday, Secretary Zinke submitted a report to President Trump, recommending changes to national monuments. Although Trump’s Executive Order in April called for a “final report” within 120 days–the deadline was Thursday–the Interior Department’s press release called the report a “draft.” And as Holly Doremus explained on this blog, it has still not been made …
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CONTINUE READING200 Days & Counting: Environmental Threat Assessment
The Trump Administration presents a barrage of threats to the environment. Which threats are worst?
This is the last in our series on the state of play concerning U.S. environmental protection at this point of the Trump Administration. We can classify threats along three dimensions: the likelihood of harm, the seriousness and irreversibility of the harm, and the irreversibility of the institutional or legal change. Here’s an assessment of our …
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CONTINUE READINGCenter for Ocean Solutions Releases Consensus Statement and Report on the Public Trust Doctrine, Sea Level Rise, and Coastal Land Use in California
Report Analyzes State Public Trust Responsibilities on the Coastline, Coincides With Coastal Commission Staff’s Release of Draft Residential Adaptation Policy Guidance
UPDATE (September 1, 2017): The statement’s drafters have provided a link (shared at the end of the post) for California attorneys who wish to sign on to the statement discussed here. Last month, a group of public trust and coastal land use experts, working under the auspices of the Center for Ocean Solutions, released two …
CONTINUE READINGWhen are markets appropriate tools for sustainably managing groundwater?
New report from Berkeley Law’s CLEE outlines critical considerations for local groundwater markets under SGMA
Locals implementing California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are rapidly turning from questions about who will manage groundwater and how they should approach institutional design to next-level questions: What does sustainability mean for a particular basin, and how will local managers achieve it? One of many potential management tools is a local groundwater market. SGMA opens the door …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Study: California Climate Policies Bringing Over $9 Billion And 41,000 Jobs To Southern California’s Inland Empire
Report commissioned by Next 10 and written by Berkeley Law’s CLEE and UC Berkeley’s labor center
With the legislature just passing a landmark extension of cap-and-trade through 2030 by a supermajority vote, attention now turns to implementing the state’s major climate programs to achieve the ambitious climate goals for that year and beyond. Critics frequently argue that efforts to fight climate change hurt the economy and cost jobs. Yet as I …
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Supreme Court Issues Split Decision in CEQA Preemption Case
Justices Find CEQA’s Application to Public Railroad Projects Not Fully Preempted
The California Supreme Court has ruled in an important case that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is not fully preempted when it comes to publicly-owned railroad projects in the Golden State. Friends of the Eel River v. North Coast Railroad Authority. In that decision, the justices forged a middle ground between the more extreme …
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CONTINUE READINGCap-And-Trade Extension A Lifeline For High Speed Rail
Auction proceeds will continue to fund the train and other transit, housing and energy programs
As Cara posted, the California Legislature scored a super-majority victory last night to extend the state’s signature cap-and-trade program through 2030. It was a rare bipartisan vote, although it leaned mostly on Democrats. Lost in the politics is what this means for high speed rail. The system has a fixed and dwindling amount of federal …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Extends its Cap-and-Trade Program Through 2030
It wasn’t pretty, but it passed
What tools will California regulators be able to use to reach the state’s ambitious 2030 climate emissions goal? That commitment, enshrined into law last year, says that California will reduce its statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in the ten years between 2020 and 2030, and forms the core of California’s climate leadership. But important …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Supreme Court Upholds Regional Planning Agency’s Greenhouse Gas CEQA Analysis, and Sets Out Principles to Ensure Better Analysis in the Future
Decision Will Help Ensure Development and Transportation Planning in California Supports GHG Reduction Efforts
In May, Rick Frank posted his reflections on the oral argument in the California Supreme Court on Cleveland National Forest Association v. San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), and predicted that SANDAG would win the case. His prediction has proved correct with the release of the Court’s opinion last week – but SANDAG’s narrow win provides a …
CONTINUE READINGThoughts on AB 398
New bill to extend state’s cap-and-trade program is a compromise worth making
The Governor and state legislative leaders announced a deal on a bill to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program to control greenhouse gas emissions through 2030, along with companion legislation to increase emissions reductions for conventional pollutants from major stationary industrial sources (a key point for environmental justice groups). Some leading business groups have endorsed the …
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