Events

Boosting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure To Meet Demand

Free luncheon and report release event at UCLA Law on Thursday, June 29th, with keynote by Energy Commissioner Janea Scott

Few clean technologies are as central for meeting climate change goals as electric vehicles.  Yet in places like California, which leads the U.S. with approximately 300,000 EVs on the road, the needed charging infrastructure is lagging.  Analysts estimate that the state will need as many as 220,000 publicly accessible EV charging ports by 2020 to …

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Planning for Utility-Scale Solar PV in the San Joaquin Valley

Free evening panel discussion in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday June 6th, 5:30 – 7pm

California aims to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, and a new bill now in the legislature seeks to get to 100% renewables by 2045. A significant amount of this energy will come from solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, with much of the deployment likely to occur in California’s San Joaquin …

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Look Out Below!

U.S. Supreme Court Signals Interest in Key Environmental Law/Federal Preemption Case From California

The U.S. Supreme Court today signaled that it is seriously considering whether to review an important environmental law case from California–one in which the California Supreme Court previously ruled that California’s ban on environmentally-damaging suction dredging in state rivers is not preempted by federal law. The case is People v. Rinehart, U.S. Supreme Court No. 16-970. …

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Where To Build Housing In California Through 2030

Join Berkeley Law’s Free Webinar On Wednesday, May 17th, 11am to Noon

California isn’t building enough housing to meet jobs and population growth, and what housing is getting built is happening too much in sprawl areas on greenfields. While this greenfield-focused development may please pro-sprawl conservatives, it will worsen traffic and air pollution and keep the state from meeting its long-term environmental goals. To discuss where and …

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The California Supreme Court’s Environmental Docket: A Tale of Two Arguments

Justices Seem Likely to Reach Environmentally-Friendly Result in One Case, But Reject Environmentalists’ Claims in Other

Last week I posted a preview of three key environmental law cases that were scheduled for argument over two days in the California Supreme Court.  I attended the arguments in two of those cases, held in San Francisco last Thursday.  Here’s an account of what transpired, along with my predictions of the likely outcomes in …

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It’s Environmental Law Week at the California Supreme Court

Justices to Hear Oral Arguments in Three Major Environmental Cases This Week

The California Supreme Court currently has approximately twenty pending environmental cases on its docket.  This week, the Court’s justices will hear oral arguments in three of the most important of those cases.  Taken together, these looming decisions raise important issues concerning the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), federal preemption, climate change mitigation and adaptation, private …

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U.C. Davis School of Law Launches New Water Justice Clinic

Environmental Justice Expert Camille Pannu Selected to Lead Pioneering Clinic

The U.C. Davis Martin Luther King, Jr. School of Law has launched an exciting new Water Justice Clinic designed to advocate for clean, healthy and adequate water supplies for all Californians.  The new Clinic is a project of the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, in partnership with the  California Environmental Law and …

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The Future Of Energy In 2030

Register now for the California State Bar Environmental Law Conference in Los Angeles on April 12th

How we generate, distribute and use electricity is key to meeting California’s environmental and greenhouse gas reduction goals. We need to be much more efficient with the electricity we use, while ensuring that it comes from greenhouse gas-free sources, like solar, wind, and geothermal, coupled with energy storage technologies. We also will need to electrify …

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Earth Day, 2017 Should Be The Next Massive Rally

The 47th Earth Day falls this year on April 22, a Saturday.  The fortuity of a weekend date makes Earth Day the perfect opportunity to marshall the energy of the wildly successful Women’s marches around the world to demand that Congress and the Trump Administration protect our planet (hat tip to Emmett Fellow Julia Forgie …

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What Does a Trump Presidency Portend for California’s Environmental Policies?

Constitutional Issues Loom Large in Future, Likely Federal-California Legal Confrontations

Sensing political storm clouds ahead, California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday issued a statement on the presidential election results that concludes: “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time–devastating climate change.” Several of my Legal Planet colleagues have recently posted thoughtful commentary on what Donald Trump’s …

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