Energy
Register For June 20th Webinar On Increasing Energy Retrofits For Low-income Multifamily Properties
Expert panel with Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister will discuss forthcoming Berkeley Law/UCLA Law report
California will need to double the energy efficiency of existing buildings by 2030 in order to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by that year. While state leaders have adopted aggressive standards for efficiency in appliances and new construction, convincing property owners to undertake retrofits to improve energy …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Michael Panfil: Supreme Court Declines to Hear New York and Illinois Clean Energy Cases Challenging Zero Emission Credits
Cert. Denials Have Significant Implications for Environment, Human Health, and Clean Energy
States are on the leading edge in crafting pathbreaking climate and clean energy policy. They rely on longstanding authority to do so to further their citizens’ welfare and wellbeing. That bedrock authority recently received important reaffirmation from the Supreme Court, which last month declined petitions for review in two cases with important implications for power …
CONTINUE READINGLaw Schools and the Environment: East Coast Version
Environmental law centers aren’t just a California thing. .
Readers of this blog probably have some sense of what the environmental law centers at UCLA and here at Berkeley are doing. There are too many environmental law centers to do a a comprehensive nationwide survey, and trying to pick a top-10 list would be completely subjective. To keep this post manageable, I’ll only discuss …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA’s Magic Disappearance Trick
The Trump EPA has come up with a way to hide hundreds of deaths in plain view.
According to press reports, EPA is preparing to ignore possible deaths caused by concentrations of pollutants occurring below the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). This is a key issue in a lot of decisions about pollution reduction. For instance, there is no NAAQS for mercury, but pollution controls on mercury would, as a side …
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CONTINUE READINGGetting to 2050
A roadmap for achieving an 80% emissions cut.
To do its part in keeping climate change to tolerable levels, the United States needs to cut its carbon emissions at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. That’s not just a matter of decarbonizing the electricity sector; it means changes in everything from aviation to steel manufacture, and reducing not only CO2 but also …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Declines to Revive Challenge to Oregon Clean Fuels Program
Legal Challenges to Oregon & California Vehicle Fuel Carbon-Intensity Standards Close to the End of the Line, Clearing Path Forward to Transformative Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transportation Sector
In this post, we continue our discussion of California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which we introduced in our post on October 4, 2018. This is third in that series. This past Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of a federal appeals court decision upholding the legality of Oregon’s Clean Fuels Program. That decision finally frees …
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CONTINUE READINGARPA-E: Surviving and Thriving Despite Trump
Trump keeps trying to kill it, but the energy innovation hub keeps on going.
In the long run, supporting energy innovation is among the most important things the federal government can do to address climate change. Naturally, Trump wants to end that. In what has become an annual ritual, his most recent budget proposal calls for eliminating the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The agency’s mission is to support …
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CONTINUE READINGHR 9: The First Climate Bill to Pass the House In a Decade
What you need to know about the bill.
Last Thursday, for the first time in a decade, the House of Representatives passed a climate change bill. HR 9, the Climate Action Now Act, passed on a vote of 231-190. The heart of HR 9 is section 3, which blocks the use of any federal funds to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Section 4 …
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CONTINUE READINGInternational Conference On Electric Vehicles & Urban Residents
Register Today For UC Berkeley Law Event On June 4th & 5th, Co-Organized By University of Paris
Policy makers and industry leaders have a tough challenge making electric vehicles accessible for the world’s urban residents. Many apartment dwellers lack access to dedicated spots with electricity to charge the vehicles, while other city residents may need access to shared EVs to get around city streets. Unless EV leaders can solve these challenges, global …
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CONTINUE READINGIs Socialism Good for the Environment?
The answer is: “Sometimes yes, sometimes not so much.”
Some of the people who are most fervent about the environment these days describe themselves as socialists. But is socialism actually a good thing for the environment? That seems like a significant question in a political context where people on both sides are throwing around the word “socialist” so much, so I decided to see …
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