Climate Change
New Report: How to Reduce Rail Transit Construction Costs and Timelines
New CLEE study recommends options for better project delivery in California and beyond + expert webinar January 27
A new study from the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law released today identifies the primary factors underlying cost and schedule overruns for rail transit construction and presents policy recommendations to overcome key barriers. Improving rail transit delivery is critical for meeting climate and equity goals, given …
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CONTINUE READINGMore on How the Vaccine Mandate Cases May Impact Climate Policy
How much is the Court likely to prune back EPA’s powers?
In a Friday post, I sketched some thoughts about how the Supreme Court’s vaccine mandate rulings might impact EPA’s power to control carbon emissions. I think it’s worth unpacking both the Court’s opinions a little more and the issues at stake in a pending climate change case, West Virginia v. EPA. The Court ruled in …
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CONTINUE READINGWildfires, CEQA, Climate Change & the Courts
Recent Court Decisions Halt Building Projects, Invalidate CEQA Reviews for Failing to Assess Wildfire Hazards
Environmental and conservation groups have for a number of years attempted to convince California courts of the need to integrate climate change considerations into environmental analyses prepared under the state’s most important environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). However, the California judiciary has demonstrated little appetite for doing so. Until now. Recently, courts …
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CONTINUE READINGToday’s Vaccine Cases: Implications for Climate Change Regulation
Today’s ruling are (somewhat) good news in terms of West Virginia v. EPA?
Today, the Court’s conservative Justices split the difference in two cases involving vaccine mandates, striking down OSHA’s mandate but upholding a more limited mandate for healthcare workers. The cases also split the conservative Justices themselves, with three hardliners (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch) seeking a more activist ruling in the OSHA case and dissenting in the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Least Surprising Disaster in History
Some disasters come as shocking surprises. Climate change is the opposite.
Whatever you want to say about climate change, you can’t say we’ve been blindsided. The US has had decades to take action against climate change, and we spent nearly half that time deliberately making things worse. Scientists have had reasons for concern about climate change for over a century, and the first government report on …
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CONTINUE READING1990: The Year the Courts Discovered Climate Change
Cases were few, but one judge was years ahead of her time.
In an earlier post, I tried to figure out when the legal academy first discovered climate changes. As it turns out, it was almost a decade later when the federal courts took notice. Those first climate change cases shed light on how new issues get litigated and how courts respond to new science. My research …
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CONTINUE READING2022: The Year Ahead
Here are the five biggest things to watch for.
There will be a lot going on this year in the environmental sphere. I wanted to focus on a few big things to keep an eye on, rather than trying to give a long, comprehensive survey. Here are the five biggest things to watch for: Midterm elections. As of now, things are looking very good …
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CONTINUE READINGRescuing FEMA (and ourselves)
FEMA needs to grow in order to handle its work. The need for growth will only get greater as time goes on.
2021 was a year of disasters, with extraordinary heat waves, fires, a string of hurricanes, a cold snap that left Texas in the dark, winter tornados, and torrential rains. FEMA has been left badly overstretched. That’s an urgent problem, and it’s likely a foretaste of the future. This is not just a problem for the …
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CONTINUE READINGEveryday Christmas: The Gift of the Commons
Clean air. Clean water. We receive these public goods every day without payment
One of the Christmas classics is the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, Stewart’s character, is despondent about his life but then learns how much he has unknowingly helped others and how grateful they are. It’s heartwarming, if also a bit corny. There’s a flip side to that story: the need to remember …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the Frustrations of Climate Politics
It’s not just the shortcomings of Joe Manchin. Climate legislation is an inherently tough political challenge.
Yesterday, Joe Manchin announced that he couldn’t support the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. Unless Biden can somehow coax him back to the negotiating table, that dooms what would have been a major breakthrough in climate policy. Manchin bears responsibility for this deeply regrettable decision. But climate legislation is hard, even in more favorable political …
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