California
“States’ Rights” and Environmental Law: California on the Front Lines
EPA’s Assault on Air Quality Protection Will Aim at California’s Standards, While Other States Have Given Up Their Authority to Protect Public Health and the Environment More Strictly
This article just published in the Atlantic explains well one of the many ways that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may attempt to deeply harm our environment for decades to come: through declining to grant, or revoking, the waivers that allow California to regulate air pollution from new motor vehicle engines more strictly than the federal government does. …
Continue reading ““States’ Rights” and Environmental Law: California on the Front Lines”
CONTINUE READINGUnderstanding why California housing costs so much
Is the problem CEQA, local land-use regulations, both or neither?
Housing costs in the Bay Area and Los Angeles continue to get a lot of attention in the press and academic literature. This New York Times article highlights this recent paper from Ed Glaeser at Harvard and Joe Gyourko at Penn – the paper’s analysis concludes that land-use regulations have significantly increased the price of …
Continue reading “Understanding why California housing costs so much”
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Environmental Assault Begins
Clean Power Plan, Waters of the U.S. Rules First on the Chopping Block But What Remains in Place Varies Dramatically
The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump Administration will very shortly roll out two executive orders to curtail environmental protection. These rollbacks follow on the heels of the Senate’s confirmation of Scott Pruitt, who has made no secret of his antipathy for federal environmental regulations. The first executive order, as widely expected, will tell the …
Continue reading “Trump’s Environmental Assault Begins”
CONTINUE READINGHow States Can Defend Themselves Against Trump
States have a number of tools for protecting their own environments from the Feds.
Suppose the Trump Administration launches environmentally harmful projects in a state or wants to allow more pollution there than the state wants. Does the state have any possible recourse? The answer is yes, although states’s defenses have their limitations. There are a number of mechanisms states can use to defend their own environments, if not the …
Continue reading “How States Can Defend Themselves Against Trump”
CONTINUE READINGWatching over our public lands
Keeping track of what is happening with our federal public lands
There is a lot of discussion about possible changes in environmental law post-election. One area that has received some attention is public lands. The federal government owns a little less than one-third of the lands of the United States – many of those lands are ecologically valuable, and are components of our priceless national park …
Continue reading “Watching over our public lands”
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Best Investment in the Fight Against Climate Change
Trump is on a search-and-destroy mission against climate science & energy research. We need to fill the gap.
How can California best move the ball on the climate issue? Ann Carlson and I have just published an op. ed. in the Sacramento Bee making the case for a state climate-research fund and explaining how it could be implemented. Here’s why investing in new knowledge is such an important move for California. California can …
Continue reading “California’s Best Investment in the Fight Against Climate Change”
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Appellate Court Hears Arguments in Cap-and-Trade Program Challenge
Court of Appeal Justices Appear Inclined to Reject Industry’s Constitutional Attack on State’s Cap-and-Trade Auction System
On Tuesday, the California Court of Appeal in Sacramento heard oral arguments in the most formidable legal challenge to the State of California’s ambitious, multifaceted efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That challenge takes the form of two cases, consolidated on appeal: California Chamber of Commerce v. California Air Resources Board and Morning Star Packing v. California Air …
Continue reading “California Appellate Court Hears Arguments in Cap-and-Trade Program Challenge”
CONTINUE READINGScott Pruitt, Senator Harris and the California Question
California leadership in peril?
Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, elided many questions yesterday and made some somewhat surprising commitments to appease Senate Democrats in response to others (acknowledging that humans are at least partially responsible for climate change; saying he’ll use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases). But his response to …
Continue reading “Scott Pruitt, Senator Harris and the California Question”
CONTINUE READINGNew Study: California Climate Policies Bringing Over $13 Billion To San Joaquin Valley
Report commissioned by Next 10 and written by Berkeley Law’s CLEE and UC Berkeley’s labor center
Climate policies are under political attack, both in California and nationally. The common argument is that these policies hurt the economy and destroy jobs, particularly in disadvantaged communities. To assess those claims, the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley Law and UC Berkeley’s Donald Vial Center on Employment in the …
CONTINUE READINGBetting on Batteries
Was the Aliso Canyon leak a blessing in disguise?
As reported on the front page of today’s New York Times, 2016 was the third straight year to set a record for highest temperature, the first time the Earth has seen three record-setting years in a row since WWII (1939, 1940, and 1941 each set records, but now 1941 only ranks as the 37th hottest year). …
Continue reading “Betting on Batteries”
CONTINUE READING