California
Where 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 READINGThe Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2017
Constitutional Issues, Water Law, Native American Rights Dominate Court’s Environmental Docket
Happy New Year! As we move into 2018, let’s take a look back at the most significant environmental law decisions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2017. Conventional wisdom is that the second most important federal court in the nation (after the U.S. Supreme Court) is the D.C. Circuit …
CONTINUE READINGThe California Supreme Court’s Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2017
CEQA, Climate Change, Cannabis & Regulatory Takings Top the Justices’ Environmental Docket
As 2017 comes to a close, let’s take a moment to assess the California Supreme Court’s most significant environmental law decisions of the year. There are a large number of decided cases to choose from: as has been true over the past decade, in 2017 the California Supreme Court devoted a substantial portion of its …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Doubles Down on Its Commitment to Reduce State Greenhouse Gas Emissions
California Air Resources Board Adopts New, Landmark Climate Change Scoping Plan
California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) has adopted a new 2017 Climate Change Scoping Plan, which is designed to extend and expand upon the state’s longstanding commitment to reduce California’s aggregate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is a landmark achievement, one that moves California further down the road to a sustainable environment and economy. A bit …
CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis to Host Conference Commemorating California Air Resources Board’s 50th Anniversary
CA Governor Jerry Brown, former USEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, CARB Chair Mary Nichols Featured
On Friday, January 19, 2018, the University of California, Davis, will host a major conference commemorating the California Air Resources Board’s 50th anniversary. The conference represents a three-way partnership between UCD School of Law’s California Environmental Law and Policy Center, UCD’s Institute for Transportation Studies and CARB. Since its creation in 1967, CARB has been …
CONTINUE READINGComprehensive New State Survey Shows California Environmental Quality Act Rarely Impedes New Projects
Study covered all state-led projects over a 5-year period
A constant complaint from many business leaders and their allies is the high cost of complying with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s signature environmental law which requires environmental review for major new projects. But a new survey from the State of California shows that the law rarely affects most projects where the …
CONTINUE READINGWetlands, WOTUS and California
California Regulators Can and Should Adopt Strong State Wetlands Protection Rules
For the past year, an overriding concern of many Californians has been whether and how state legislators and regulators can fill the environmental law and policy gap left by a Trump Administration that is in the process of reversing a host of Obama-era environmental rules and that has otherwise largely abandoned the field of environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGPineapples and Preparing for the Future at COP23
Guest post by Eric Sezgen, UCLA Law student
As Alex’s previous blogpost states, there was a sense of urgency at this COP. Urgency had observable consequences all around the conference and was not only embraced but enhanced by Fiji’s presidency. You could see this even in the COP’s logo. Whereas the COP logo is usually a sleek and trendy design to look good …
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CONTINUE READINGOf Dreamliners and Drinking Water
Michael Kiparsky and Christian Binz
As we have written previously, potable water reuse (recycling water to augment water supplies) is a promising way to diversify urban water supply portfolios. Direct potable water reuse (DPR), the injection of highly purified wastewater into drinking water systems, is among the newest, and most controversial, methods for augmenting water supplies. DPR is garnering increasing …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law Professors File Amicus Brief in Defense of Technology-Forcing in the California Supreme Court
Professors oppose efforts to limit the Legislature’s authority to enact laws protecting the public health and safety of CA residents
My colleague Sean Hecht and I, along with eleven other California environmental law professors, filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court this week in support of the California Legislature’s authority to enact technology-forcing statutes. The underlying case, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., et al. v. State of California, involves a gun control law …
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