Climate Change

A New Low for Fictional News Network

Guess which cable news network misleads on climate?

Well, what a shock: To gauge how accurately [cable news] networks inform their audiences about climate change, the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzed the networks’ climate science coverage in 2013 and found that each network treated climate science very differently. Fox News was the least accurate; 72 percent of its 2013 climate science-related segments contained …

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As Oil by Rail Gains Momentum, Is California On Track to Protect Human Health and the Environment?

A closer look at the data and key legal issues

California will soon see a surge in the number of trains carrying crude oil into the state, as oil production in North Dakota’s Bakken region and Canada continues to increase, sending more crude to California refineries. Last week, the California Senate Environmental Quality Committee and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the safety of …

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Reduced VMT from Millennials: Good News From an Unlikely Source

Younger people are driving less, even controlling for the flat economy

Last week I reported on the Caltrans survey findings showing that Californians seem to be driving less. Too good to be true?  Perhaps.  My always-pessimistic colleague Brian Taylor suspects that this is more about the Great Recession than about real changes in driving habits. Brian and his colleagues at the University of California Transportation Center recently …

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California’s Path to 2050

Recent research shows that California can meet its 2050 climate goals at an affordable cost.

Could California make deep cuts in carbon by 2050 (80% below 1990 levels)?  Are the economics feasible?  Those are important questions for California, but they also have a lot to say about what’s feasible for the U.S. and other developing countries as a whole. Last December, UC Davis hosted a forum on the models that …

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Two good recent articles on environmental law

Regulating diffuse harms is a key future challenge for environmental law

JOTWELL is a blog dedicated to highlighting some of the best, recent legal scholarship.  I recently posted a review there of two excellent recent articles in environmental law — I think they’re both terrific because they both highlight what I think will be an increasingly important issue in the future of environmental law: How we …

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Upcoming Climate Practitioners’ Workshop at UCLA

Explore recent legal developments in Federal and California greenhouse gas regulation for CLE credit

Why not earn your continuing legal education (CLE) credits while learning about recent developments in climate change law? Next Friday, March 14, 2014, the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law is co-hosting an all-day practitioners’ workshop that will explore cutting-edge developments in greenhouse gas regulation. “Navigating Climate Regulation on Dual …

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George Will and Conservative Climate Denial

The three types of conservatism all tend to reject climate science, but for different reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, George Will told the Fox News audience that humans have nothing to do with climate change — it’s just natural fluctuations.  Will himself has changed his brand of conservatism in the past few years, as the New Republic has noted.  At this point, he has sampled two of the three …

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Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA: Another Take on the SCOTUS Oral Argument

Decision favoring EPA seems likely

The venerable pastime of U.S. Supreme Court-watching always involves divergent opinions that, as Rick Frank noted, all should be taken with a grain (or even a pound) of salt. The outcome of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA is decidedly uncertain, but I left the oral argument yesterday more optimistic than my Legal Planet colleague. …

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Deconstructing Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group

The EPA Could Well Lose This Challenge to Its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Efforts

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the most important environmental law case of the current Term: Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. Based on those arguments–and, more importantly, the justices’ questions and comments–it appears that EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act’s …

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Previewing Next Week’s Climate Change Arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court

Big Stakes and Big Players in This Year’s Biggest Environmental Case

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the biggest environmental law case of its current Term, Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA. Legal Planet colleagues Ann Carlson and Dan Farber have already posted their thoughts on the case. Let me add mine. Utility Air Regulatory Group involves EPA’s authority to regulate stationary …

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