General
Manila Protests Over Environment Follow a Rich Tradition
Happy Filipino American History Month. Here’s a look at Filipino-led protests for environmental justice.
The Philippines made international news last month when several tens of thousands of protestors took over the streets of Manila to express their outrage over the government’s embezzlement of over a trillion Philippine pesos (approximately $17.6 billion USD) designated for flood control projects. Losing this amount of climate-designated funds to corruption would be problematic anywhere …
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CONTINUE READINGArson Alone Does Not Explain the Palisades Fire
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
When federal prosecutors charged a man last week with intentionally starting a brushfire that was suppressed but smoldered and ultimately became the Palisades fire, arson became the focus of attention all week. The city’s after-action report about the fire was totally overshadowed by questions around the suspect. What was his motive? Is there strong evidence? …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dark and Quiet Skies Campaign
What does Space Law have to do with environmental law? Satellites pollute in more ways than you think.
When you walk outside at night, do you ever wonder how many stars you can see? For most of human history, this would have been a foolish question. The night sky was filled with stars. Today, though, in any major city you may be lucky to see only a handful. For years, astronomers have warned …
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CONTINUE READINGThe War on Public Health Continues
Friday’s layoffs announcements at CDC targeted infectious disease control
During the COVID outbreak, President Trump said, “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.” That philosophy seems to have taken hold during his second term in office. On Friday, the Administration fired more than a thousand CDC workers, incljding the scientists and doctors who provide key information and expertise about infectious disease outbreaks. The effect is to kneecap the government’s capacity to detect and track outbreaks.
CONTINUE READINGSome Good News About the El Segundo Chevron Explosion
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
When the state’s second-largest refinery emitted a fireball into the heavens last week, it was bad. But it wasn’t all bad. The “incident” at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo was a good reminder that air pollution is present during the entire life cycle of oil and gas products, from when it comes out of …
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CONTINUE READINGCreating an Anti-Rollback Playbook
The Administration has a favored toolset for justifying its rollbacks. We need to perfect the counterarguments.
A successful strategy will involve not only winning individual cases, but building a body of precedent that make the legal ground increasingly shaky for Trump rollbacks. It the Administrative can be forced into the normal rulemaking process and has to rely on scientific and economic justifications for what it is doing, it will have lost more than half the battle.
CONTINUE READINGWebinar: Climate Policy without the Endangerment Finding
UCLA Law’s “Up in the Air” webinar explores the future of federal and state climate policy if the endangerment finding is repealed.
As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin rushes to rescind the endangerment finding — which some have called “the Holy Grail of U.S. climate policy” — the UCLA Emmett Institute hosted an expert panel discussion on the reasoning and ramifications of such a move. The effort underlines “an extraordinarily dark time in U.S. environmental politics,” …
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CONTINUE READINGOne Easy Fix to Prepare for the Next Big Disaster
A little-known drafting wrinkle in current state law is impeding local governments from springing into action after disasters.
Along with my fellow Angelenos, this year I’ve had a front-row seat to the challenges of regional recovery from a major disaster event. The January 2025 Eaton and Palisades wildfires devastated LA-area communities, including two—the Palisades and Altadena—locally renowned for their distinctive neighborhood feel. In the aftermath, the response highlighted challenges at every level of …
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CONTINUE READINGImmigration Law is Environmental Law
The recent ICE raid on a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia highlights a problem in our visa system — and our politics.
Three weeks ago, federal and state agents conducted an immigration raid at a multi-billion-dollar Hyundai-LG battery plant under construction in Ellabell, Georgia and detained some 475 workers. About 300 of these workers were South Korean citizens. 14 were from China, Japan, and Indonesia. Another 145 were from Mexico and other Latin American countries. As has …
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CONTINUE READINGNew York Climate Weak
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Now is the time for courage. Now is not the time to pull punches or pull speakers. We need more speech — not enforced silence. That’s why I’m not a big fan of shutting down campus speakers, even those who might spread climate obstruction. Like Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who was being …
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