Climate Change
Finally, some good news from Congress
The Senate voted 51-49 Wednesday morning against considering a resolution to repeal Obama-era regulations targeting methane emissions from oil and gas operations on federal lands. The Senate was considering whether to vote on rolling back the rule under the Congressional Review Act, which allows the Senate to repeal rules within 60 days of enactment. Three …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Dallas Burtraw: Three Revisions Not to Overlook in California’s New Cap-and-Trade Proposal, SB 775
The Proposal Would Eliminate Allowance Banking and Offsets, and Add a Border Adjustment Mechanism
The California cap-and trade-program is already the most rigorous and best-designed allowance market in the world. Its purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. But now the program requires adjustments for political and legal reasons. These adjustments will be a vitally important legislative decision – for the state and the …
CONTINUE READING“California Alone” Should Not Govern State Climate Policy
SB 775 Turns California Inward and Diminishes Its Role As Global Leader
Last week, Senator Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) introduced a new bill, SB 775, that would replace California’s cap-and-trade system with a new approach to regulating California’s greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2021. There is much to admire in the new bill, including an aggressive pricing approach that would ensure that California’s carbon price remains high. The …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Future of California’s Greenhouse Gas Cap and Trade Program After 2020: A Conversation
Posts on Legal Planet Over the Coming Week, Linked Here, Will Address Pending California Legislation on Cap and Trade from Multiple Perspectives
This post is the preface to a series of posts by multiple authors (including guests) over the coming week (starting May 9) about the future of the state’s cap and trade program for greenhouse gases. Two bills, AB 378 and SB 775, are being debated by the environmental and environmental justice communities, and our bloggers …
CONTINUE READINGThe California Supreme Court’s Environmental Docket: A Tale of Two Arguments
Justices Seem Likely to Reach Environmentally-Friendly Result in One Case, But Reject Environmentalists’ Claims in Other
Last week I posted a preview of three key environmental law cases that were scheduled for argument over two days in the California Supreme Court. I attended the arguments in two of those cases, held in San Francisco last Thursday. Here’s an account of what transpired, along with my predictions of the likely outcomes in …
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CONTINUE READINGThinking Globally, Acting Transnationally
Despite Trump, Americans are joining the international fight against climate change.
The U.S. government obviously isn’t going to be taking a global leadership role regarding climate change, not for the next four years. At one time, that would have been the end of the story: the only way to accomplish anything internationally was through national governments. But we live in a different world today and there …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Budget Update
Trump’s brutal attack on environmental spending seems mired in Congress.
It was clear early on that the stop-gap funding measure rejected Trump’s budget priorities. Emerging details about the bill demonstrate how starkly Trump lost. Environmental and energy programs survived with very little damage. Let’s begin with the EPA budget. Trump sought an immediate cut, followed by a 33% cut in the next budget. Instead, EPA …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate “Skeptic” Bret Stephens Cherrypicks Bad Climate Policies In The New York Times
Another misleading op-ed from the new columnist
Bret Stephens, the New York Times’ new columnist, got the climate change world into an outrage with his first column last week, which compared climate science to Hillary Clinton’s pre-election polling and argued for restraint from climate advocates. In his follow up column yesterday, he took a more measured tone, noting that he believes the …
CONTINUE READINGIt’s Environmental Law Week at the California Supreme Court
Justices to Hear Oral Arguments in Three Major Environmental Cases This Week
The California Supreme Court currently has approximately twenty pending environmental cases on its docket. This week, the Court’s justices will hear oral arguments in three of the most important of those cases. Taken together, these looming decisions raise important issues concerning the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), federal preemption, climate change mitigation and adaptation, private …
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CONTINUE READINGThinking Globally, Acting Soldierly
Looking for people who care about climate change? Try the Pentagon.
Sometimes, it seems like the world is upside down: the head of EPA is a climate skeptic; the head of DOD takes climate change very seriously. But the view of the Secretary of Defense isn’t a fluke. There’s a liong list of Pentagon documents about the risks of climate change, going back over twenty years. …
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