Environmental Justice
Benedict XVI, Environmentalist Pope
Pope Benedict announced today that he is stepping down. As Pope, he was a strong supporter of the environment. For example, he has said this to say about sustainable development: The protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of resources and of the climate, oblige all leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the world (cf. …
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CONTINUE READINGIs CEQA “Greenmail” A Problem?
Via PropertyProf blog, here’s an article on the real estate blog LA Curbed in which they disclose a previously secret settlement agreement between an LA neighborhood group and a local developer. The agreement resolved potential CEQA litigation by the neighborhood group against a possible condo development proposed by the developer. In particular, Curbed is outraged …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Symposium on Disaster Law
The Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum has just published a great symposium on disaster law. The authors include some leading lights in environmental law, and for good reason, since disaster issues and environmental law are closely related. Here are links to all of the individual articles: Articles Introduction: Legal Scholarship, the Disaster Cycle, and …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy Monitoring Matters
There’s been a lot of discussion here about the failings of the latest Supreme Court environmental decision in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. NRDC. I don’t really want to pile on with those criticisms – though it is baffling to me that the Court wasted its very limited judicial resources correcting the Ninth …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court agrees to hear TX-OK water dispute: Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann (No. 11-889), an appeal from the 10th Circuit regarding apportionment of the Red River, which forms the southeastern border between Oklahoma and Texas. At issue before the Court is whether it is “OK” for a Texas water supplier to obtain …
CONTINUE READINGIs a rider an earmark?
Environmentalists have long bemoaned appropriations riders — where Congress inserts a matter of substantive law into a budget appropriations bill. For instance, EPA gets a budget, but may not use any funds to enforce or promulgate a controversial regulation. Sometimes Congress just changes the underlying law, permanently or temporarily. Appropriations bills are enormous, so it’s …
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CONTINUE READINGYes, California Can Spend the Cap-and-Trade Auction Proceeds
California’s 2012-13 budget assumed that $500 million of cap-and-trade auction proceeds could be used to offset the cost of greenhouse gas emission reduction programs traditionally supported by the General Fund. Two recent stories, one in the San Francisco Chronicle, the other in ClimateWire, report that since the California Legislative Analyst’s office found only $100 million …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia electricity consumers may receive cap-and-trade dividend
As I mentioned on Monday, the 23.1 million greenhouse gas (GHG) allowances (current-vintage) sold at the cap-and-trade auction on Monday were all consigned to auction by utility companies. The $233 million generated by that sale must now be used by those utilities to the benefit of ratepayers. Last Friday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued its …
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CONTINUE READINGBreakdown of the $4.5 Billion BP Criminal & Securities Settlements
As Richard noted in an earlier post, today, British oil company and deep water drilling giant, BP, announced that it had reached settlements of all federal criminal and securities claims related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Department of …
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CONTINUE READINGOne Additional Legal Challenge To AB 32: Prop 26
One addendum to my post on new developments and cap-and-trade. I should have mentioned that Proposition 26 — which tightened the 2/3s vote requirement for taxes to include fees — may be the basis for another legal challenge to the cap-and-trade program. California voters approved Prop 26 in 2010. Unless Prop 26 is found to …
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