Climate Change
The Presidency Under Siege
The current Justices are no friends of presidential power.
As recent scholarship has shown, the Supreme Court has been increasingly aggressive in countering exercises of presidential power. From the environmental perspective, West Virginia v. EPA is the most relevant example of the Court’s efforts to cut the presidency down to size. True, the Court purported to be chastising EPA, part of the bureaucracy. Yet …
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CONTINUE READINGThis Climate Debate is a lot of Hot Air
Geoengineering is having a moment. But much of the media coverage is failing to capture the actual debate.
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about geoengineering – the various scientific theories and governance ideas that could eventually lead to technological interventions to help cool the planet. A weather balloon stunt in Mexico by a small startup called Make Sunsets generated a lot of hot headlines, even though that solar geoengineering “experiment” was so …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Buildout Begins
New billion-dollar factories to produce EVs and their batteries are popping up across the country, with important political implicationss.
There’s been a surge of new EV and battery manufacturing projects in the past year. According to NPR, “In 2022 alone, companies announced more than $73 billion in planned projects — more than three times the previous record, set in 2021.” We read a lot about the rapid expansion of EV and battery manufacturing. It …
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CONTINUE READINGHow California (and the World) Get to 30×30
COP15 in Montreal ended with a pledge to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030. UCLA student analysis shows what we can learn from California’s own plan.
By Ashley Anderson, Elana Nager, and Madeline Ward As 2022 wound down, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) convened in Montreal. The conference ended with around 190 of the world’s nations adopting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which establishes four goals and twenty-three targets to be achieved by 2030. The most prominent of these …
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CONTINUE READINGWhen Bad Things Happen to Good Regulations
The GOP’s effort cancel a pension reg illustrates the evils of the Congressional Review Act.
In their crusade against “wokeness,” congressional Republicans are taking aim at Labor Department rule about pension plan investments. The rule’s transgression is apparently that it makes easier for pension plans to consider how climate-related risks might affect a company’s bottom line. To avoid being woke, the GOP would apparently prefer pension managers to close their …
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CONTINUE READINGBiden’s silent climate victory lap
The president talks up his climate laws without saying “climate.” Can the U.S. meet its climate goals without telling voters about them?
Well, we finally got a real “Infrastructure Week.” President Biden has been traveling from Baltimore to New York to Kentucky, touting his major legislative achievements in front of trains, tunnels and bridges. He’s talking up both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a warm-up for his State …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Much Rain is L.A. Capturing?
Local measures like Measure W are working. But more needs to be done to capture stormwater and rainwater.
At least nine atmospheric rivers blasted California between December 20th and January 15th, causing flooding and extensive damage, while also delivering much needed precipitation to our parched state. The Los Angeles County Public Works Department announced recently that more than 33 billion gallons of stormwater have been captured in the early months of the winter …
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CONTINUE READINGHere’s a New Acronym: CBAM. You’re Going to be Seeing It a Lot.
The EU has taken a major step to pressure global industries to clean up their act.
In December, the EU provisionally adopted a carbon tariff on imports. The official name is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM for short. The purpose of the mechanism is that EU companies, unlike many in other countries, have to pay a price for the carbon emitted in manufacturing. They need a border adjustment to …
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CONTINUE READINGTightening the Net
Tackling climate procrastination by closing the loopholes in ‘net-zero’ climate goals
The global stampede to adopt net-zero climate goals continues unabated. As a goal net-zero is achieved when any residual carbon emissions are counter-balanced fully by dedicated carbon removal. Delivered at a global level, this would stabilise global temperatures. Almost 70% of states (accounting for 90% of the world’s economic activity) have adopted net-zero goals, as …
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CONTINUE READINGThe fight over California’s greenhouse gas and ZEV car standards continues
UCLA Clinic files amicus brief on behalf of Sen. Carper and Rep. Pallone to uphold standards
Of the many achievements of California’s legendary legislator Fran Pavley, one of the most remarkable is then-Assemblywoman Pavley’s modest bill, AB 1493, which directed California to become the first jurisdiction in the country to control greenhouse gas emissions from cars. That bill, introduced in 2001 and passed the next year, told the California Air Resources …
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