Climate Change

How Cities Can Optimize Federal and State Funding Opportunities for Local Climate Action

Part Three of CLEE’s analysis for funding and financing municipal climate action

As my colleagues Katie Segal and Ted Lamm have covered here and here, last week our team at CLEE released an analysis detailing how San Francisco can fund its ambitious Climate Action Plan. Katie provided an overview of the city’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), describing how San Francisco will need to secure tens of billions …

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How Can Local Governments Pay for Climate Action?

San Francisco Analysis Points the Way for Peers

As my colleague Katie Segal wrote earlier this week, our team at CLEE recently released a report detailing how San Francisco can fund its ambitious Climate Action Plan. As more local governments in California and around the country develop robust climate action plans–and as federal action to reduce emissions remains unpredictable as ever–it is increasingly …

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Funding & Financing San Francisco’s Ambitious Climate Action Plan

New CLEE analysis recommends revenue, equity, and implementation measures for city climate action

Cities are leaders in climate policy and planning, and many cities have developed local climate action plans (CAPs) that envision strategies to reduce emissions and increase resilience in a changing climate. Hundreds of local governments in California have adopted such plans, ranging from dense Bay Area cities to rural Central Valley counties. However, few of …

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A Stealth Climate Bill

There’s more money for climate action tucked away in a must-pass bill.

Surprise! The lame-duck Congress is about to consider another bill with billions of dollars of spending for climate adaptation and emission reductions. Another surprise: the bill is named for Senator James Inhofe. In case you’ve forgotten, he’s the climate change denier who once took a snowball to the Senate floor to disprove climate change. You …

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The Supreme Court’s Earliest Pollution Cases

Long before Congress, a notoriously conservative Court started taking pollution seriously.

Well over a century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that it had that power to remedy interstate water pollution. That was in 1901. Six years later, the Court decided its first air pollution case.  Notably, these cases came during the conservative Lochner era when the Court was hardly known for its liberalism.  Quite the contrary. …

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Brazil: Presidential Election, Saving the Amazon, and Combating Climate Change

Views from the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force

By Jason Gray and Colleen Scanlan Lyons Co-Project Directors, GCF Task Force Yesterday, the people of Brazil had a historic vote in favor of returning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) to power. Lula, who served as President of Brazil from 2003 to 2010 (and is the first President in Brazil to return for …

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GCF Task Force Exchange of Experiences in San Martin, Peru

Notes from the Field

From October 10-13, 2022, the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF Task Force) – a project of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law and UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, in partnership with the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder – and …

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California’s Secret Weapon: The Scoping Plan

There’s no substitute for a comprehensive policy vision.

The scoping process has been key to California’s success in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  The process requires the government to assess past progress, project future emissions, and come up with a strategy to meet its climate goals.  In contrast, in many states – and at the federal level – there’s no real mechanism for a …

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Senate 2022: Wisconsin    

Of all the states in play, the Wisconsin race may have the sharpest contrast between view on climate change.

Wisconsin has been a swing state in recent presidential elections. The Senate race there could help determine control of the Senate. The incumbent Republican is a climate change denier. The challenge highlights his support for climate action. Ron Johnson (R). Johnson, the incumbent,  has a 7% lifetime LCV score, meaning he voted against the environment …

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Happy 50th Anniversary, Federal Clean Water Act

One of America’s Foundational Environmental Laws Has Proven Transformational, But Requires Updating a Half-Century Later

The Clean Water Act (CWA), one of the nation’s most important environmental laws, is 50 years old today.  It’s proven to be one of the most successful of America’s bedrock federal environmental statutes.  But the CWA is far from perfect, needs some important updating, and will probably never fully achieve the aspirational goals Congress proclaimed …

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