General
Solar Geoengineering in the News — Again and Again
An update on the serious and the silly
Solar geoengineering has been prominent in the news lately. It looks like the long-predicted spike of attention to these potential climate responses may finally be starting – with many attendant opportunities for controversy and confusion. For background on solar geoengineering, why it’s important to research, and what the debates over it are, check out various …
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CONTINUE READINGCap and Trade Heats Up—For Better or Worse
Prices are high and markets are proliferating as program designers lean away from the more controversial elements of carbon trading.
This past year has been big for cap-and-trade-style systems, and that momentum looks like it’s continuing in 2023. Recently, we’ve seen new programs start up in Oregon and Washington, a proposal in New York State for new carbon markets, and sustained high prices in existing programs in California and the Northeast. Although these programs differ …
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CONTINUE READINGConnecting New Housing to Needed Energy Service
Why is PG&E taking so long to provide energy to new homes?
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights an apparent pattern of delays on the part of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in providing energy service to new homes. At a time when policy makers on all levels are pushing for the construction of much-needed housing, the Chron reports that many new homes …
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CONTINUE READINGCEQA and UC Berkeley Housing: Don’t Panic
The decision blocking student housing hardly represents new NIMBY weaponization.
Lots of screaming and yelling about last week’s Court of Appeal CEQA decision concerning student housing at UC Berkeley. The Court struck down the university’s plan for more student housing on the grounds that the final Environmental Impact Report did not adequately assess noise impacts from students. “The campus is dismayed by this unprecedented …
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CONTINUE READINGBiden’s silent climate victory lap
The president talks up his climate laws without saying “climate.” Can the U.S. meet its climate goals without telling voters about them?
Well, we finally got a real “Infrastructure Week.” President Biden has been traveling from Baltimore to New York to Kentucky, touting his major legislative achievements in front of trains, tunnels and bridges. He’s talking up both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a warm-up for his State …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Much Rain is L.A. Capturing?
Local measures like Measure W are working. But more needs to be done to capture stormwater and rainwater.
At least nine atmospheric rivers blasted California between December 20th and January 15th, causing flooding and extensive damage, while also delivering much needed precipitation to our parched state. The Los Angeles County Public Works Department announced recently that more than 33 billion gallons of stormwater have been captured in the early months of the winter …
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CONTINUE READING50 Years Ago: Environmental Law in 1973
Five decades back, the country was in the midst of unprecedented environmental ferment.
1973 was at the crest of the environmental surge that swept the United States half a century ago. In the previous three years, Congress had passed NEPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. The first EPA Administrator took office in 1971. Continuing the legislative wave, 1973 saw the passage of the Endangered …
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CONTINUE READINGUnraveling Hydrogen: Part I
The first in a series that examines the hype around hydrogen production.
For over a century, supporters of hydrogen energy have billed H2 as the fuel of the future. In his 1874 novel, The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne wrote that “water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and …
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CONTINUE READINGMy Farewell to UCLA
Leaving UCLA to join Earthjustice is exciting, and bittersweet, for me
This will be my final Legal Planet post as a member of the UCLA faculty. After 20 wonderful years at UCLA School of Law, directing our Environmental Law Center and Wells Clinic and then co-directing our Emmett Institute with Cara Horowitz, I’m leaving to join Earthjustice as the managing attorney of the organization’s California Regional …
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CONTINUE READINGLA’s Big Step toward Building Electrification
Los Angeles is about to require that new buildings be electric, but there’s a bigger decarbonization hurdle waiting.
The City of Los Angeles is going into the new year with a big new building-decarbonization ordinance: starting this year, nearly all new buildings in the city will have to be entirely electric. This means that, with few exceptions, new buildings will need to exclusively use electric appliances, and will not be allowed to contain …
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