Environmental Justice

Tunnel vision in environmental law and policy

One of the reasons that environmental law and policy is so interesting, and so challenging, is that it is very, very difficult to reduce what we mean by “environmental quality” to one single metric.  A couple of recent posts by a leading progressive policy blogger (Matt Yglesias) make this point very well.

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Tea Party activist wants to repeal all California environmental laws

A number of other posts on Legal Planet have noted various efforts by Republicans in Congress to stop or repeal EPA regulations.  Those efforts are part of a broader movement by Tea Party organizations (organizations that are overwhelmingly Republican) to effectively eliminate environmental regulations in the United States.  If there was any doubt about that …

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Extra! Extra! Read All About it!

Here’s a scary thought.  There’s an important new development in environmental law.  OK, that could be scary, especially if it involves the current Congress. But the really scary thought is this:  what if you don’t find out about it because you forgot to check Legal Planet that day? Fortunately, the remedy is at hand.  If …

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CEQ finalizes guidance for categorical exclusions

Cross-posted at CPRBlog. The White House Council on Environmental Quality has issued the first of three expected final guidance documents for federal agencies implementing the National Environmental Policy Act. This one, which covers the use of categorical exclusions, is an excellent start. NEPA is the “look before you leap” environmental law. It requires that federal …

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Anti-AB 32 Campaign Should Be Interesting

The ballot initiative to suspend the implementation of California’s landmark greenhouse gas legislation — which qualified for the ballot last week —  should garner huge amounts of attention and spur job growth at least in the world of ballot campaigns.  The California Public Policy Institute is predicting that proponents and opponents of the initiative (which …

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Petitions, agency expertise and dispersed information in environmental law

“Agency expertise” is a familiar phrase to anyone who has had any significant experience in environmental law.  Courts defer to agencies in part because of the perception that agencies have more expertise in technical matters than the courts or the plaintiffs who might be challenging agency decisions.  One of the criticisms of various forms of …

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Exploring Climate Change and the Law

Looking for a way to pass the time over the long Labor Day weekend? Want to learn more about the legal and policy dimension of climate change? Check out Berkeley’s course on climate law, now available here on YouTube.  Scholars discuss everything from the economics of climate change to  WTO issues raised by biofuels ,and …

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Looking Back: Three Decades of an Environmental Law Casebook

Ann Carlson and I have just sent West the manuscript for the 8th edition of“Environmenal Law: Cases and Materials.” (The third member of our author team, Jody Freeman, didn’t participate in the revision because of her White House duties.)  Some thirty years ago, Roger Findley and I started work on the first edition of the …

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Public Enemies: EPA’s Most Wanted List

EPA has a list of fugitives, all of them wanted in connection with environmental crimes. Defendants charged with environmental crimes or violations of the U.S. Federal Criminal Code sometimes flee the court’s jurisdiction and/or the USA rather than face prosecution or to serve a sentence. When these circumstances occur, the defendants become fugitives from justice. …

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The U.S. Supreme Court; the Environment – It’s Not Too Late to Get Briefed

Recently, Berkeley Law’s environmental faculty presented a fast-paced, informative webcast on the numerous, key environmental law decisions handed down by the United Supreme Court in its just-concluded Term. The 90-minute webcast was sponsored and hosted by Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE). Berkeley Law professors Dan Farber, Holly Doremus, Eric Biber …

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