Environmental Justice
In Praise of the 9-0 Supreme Court Loss: LA Port’s Clean Trucks Program lives on
If you’re an environmental group and you find yourself in front of today’s Supreme Court, in some sense you’ve already lost. Nothwithstanding the 2007 Mass v EPA victory for climate change regulation, the Supremes tend not to look kindly, lately, on environmental interests. (Richard Lazarus has argued that the record of NEPA losses at the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe State Senate’s proposal for CEQA reform
The State Senate recently passed its version of CEQA reform. Having looked over the bill, it’s much better than I feared. What seems to be the most important change is a move towards adopting standard setting in CEQA – i.e., making generalized determinations about what levels of certain kinds of impacts are “significant” such that …
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CONTINUE READINGCourt Casts Doubt on Constitutionality of Michigan’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, Upholds Cost Sharing for Transmission Lines
In an important victory for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — and in my view for renewable energy more generally — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has upheld a FERC order that helps finance transmission lines to carry renewable energy from rural areas to urban centers in the midwest and …
CONTINUE READINGWhich City Has the Best Parks? Trust for Public Lands Releases Annual ParkScore Ranking.
The Trust for Public Land (TPL) recently released its annual ParkScore index, which ranks the park systems of the fifty largest U.S. cities. As with all scorecards, the methodology is imperfect and the metrics are somewhat crude; but seeing how U.S. cities compare across uniform parameters is a good starting point for a larger conversation …
CONTINUE READINGSome Overdue Environmental Justice In Time for Shavuot
The Jewish festival of Shavuot, which begins at sundown this evening, commemorates the Israelites’ receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Shavuot is thus the paradigmatic lawyers’ holiday given its focus on law and justice. This connects nicely with the other two great pilgrimage holidays found in the Jewish Bible, giving us a trinity (so …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Justice, Metrics & California’s San Joaquin Valley
This week the California Environmental Protection Agency issued a disturbing but worthwhile report on environmental justice issues in California. That report confirms what many environmental justice advocates and state residents already assumed: that the San Joaquin Valley is–far and away–the most environmentally-challenged region of the state. According to the CalEPA press release accompanying the report, …
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CONTINUE READINGIndustry Coalition Petitions for Supreme Court Review of D.C. Circuit Decision on Greenhouse Gas Rules
Yesterday, American Chemistry Council and a coalition of other industry groups filed a petition for U.S. Supreme Court review of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ June, 26 2012 decision upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas rules. As Dan previously discussed here, the D.C. Circuit denied rehearing of its decision in December. The American …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Miriam Seifter: The Environmental Dimension of American Trucking
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard argument in American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, a case addressing the preemptive scope of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA). Over at Scotusblog, I’ve discussed the two relatively technical questions presented in the case. The first asks whether two provisions in the Port of …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Sued Again Over Cap-and-Trade Program
Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit today against the state’s Air Resources Board on the grounds that the auction of allowances under California’s cap-and-trade program constitutes an unconstitutional tax. In the new suit, Morning Star Packing Company v. California Air Resources Board, PLF argues that a) the auctioning of revenues constitute a tax which b) requires …
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CONTINUE READINGGood environmental data matters for environmental litigation
If you aren’t reading Dave Owen’s blog posts over at Environmental Law Prof Blog, you should be. His most recent post is about a recent Endangered Species Act (ESA) case in Texas: Environmental plaintiffs sued, arguing that the state of Texas had allowed too many water withdrawals upstream from the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, a critical breeding …
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