Energy
Painful Tradeoffs
How do we manage the local environmental impacts of the energy transition?
Just before leaving office, the Trump Administration approved a huge lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada. The mine could help supply the U.S. battery industry for decades. It might also impact habitat of the endangered grouse sage, deplete groundwater levels, and threaten the survival of an endangered trout. Local residents have sued to block the …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking Up with Fossil Fuels
It’s not us. It’s you.
WORLD: Thanks for the card. . . . But I think we need to talk. FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY: About what? W: About us. FFI: About us?? Can’t it wait until some other time? This is Valentine’s Day, and I’ve made plans for us. Big plans. W: The pandemic has given me a lot of time …
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CONTINUE READINGFrank G. Wells Clinic Faculty File Amicus Brief on Behalf of Law Professors in California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley
Supporting Berkeley’s ability to decide where utility infrastructure may be built
This week, as part of the Frank G. Wells Clinic in Environmental Law, Cara Horowitz, Julia Stein, and I filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of seven law professors in the Ninth Circuit case California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley, in which the California Restaurant Association (CRA), an industry association, is challenging a …
CONTINUE READINGJim Crow and the Fossil Fuel Industry
The fossil fuel industry has yet to escape its discriminatory past.
This being Black History Month, I thought it would be worthwhile looking at the fossil fuel industry’s racial history. Given the historic concentration of the oil and coal industries in the South, it is no surprise to find that these industries have also been deeply entangled with Jim Crow and its legacy of discrimination. Oil …
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CONTINUE READINGUn-Inventing Fire
After many eons, reliance on combustion for energy is ending.
To head off disastrous climate change, we need to radically transform the modern energy system. We must largely move beyond the use of fire, the first and most important of inventions. The core energy technology used by humans has always involved, in one form or another, burning things up. To a large extent, combatting climate …
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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 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 READINGWhat Does the Future Hold for the American Gas Station?
The end of the gas car will eventually leave 100,000 stations behind.
Gas stations have been fixtures in our world for a century or more. There are even books of photos of picturesque gas stations, some futuristic, others quaint. We’re transitioning into a world dominated by electric vehicles. What does the future hold for these icons of the fossil fuel era? There are now about a hundred …
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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 READING2021: The Year in Review
After the dark days of the Trump Era, environmental policy had a very good year
The continuing pandemic sometimes makes it feel like time is frozen. But 2021 was a big year for environmental policy. Politics. The biggest news of 2021, for the environment as well as other reasons, was the replacement of Donald Trump by Joseph Biden. On the regulatory front, the change in White House control instantly stopped …
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