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Guest Blogger John Graham: California Court Decision Will Affect Future Use of Carbon Offsets to Mitigate Emissions of Development
The California Court of Appeal Rules San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan Violates CEQA
The challenge to San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan (“CAP”) in Golden Door has been closely watched by many interested in the use of carbon offsets to mitigate GHG impacts in California. Simply put, carbon offsets are mechanisms that reflect off-site GHG reductions—from activities like reforestation—that can, in some cases, compensate for a project’s GHG …
CONTINUE READINGHow To Ensure A More Sustainable Supply Chain For Electric Vehicle Batteries
New CLEE & NRGI Report Launch Today & 9am PT Webinar
CLEE and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) are pleased to release today the new report “Sustainable Drive, Sustainable Supply: Priorities to Improve the Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chain.” The report identifies key challenges and solutions to ensure battery supply chain sustainability through a multi-stakeholder approach, based on our outreach to experts in the field. …
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CONTINUE READINGPlanet Earth as Desert Island: “Lord of the Flies” or “Gilligan’s Island”?
Or in more technical terms, the Tragedy of the Commons? Or its inverse?
Lord of the Flies is a memorable novel about a group of English schoolboys who are marooned on a desert island. They quickly descend into savagery and violence. The book can be seen as a parable of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s view that human life in a state of nature is short, nasty, and brutish. But …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump Administration’s Court Challenge to California-Quebec Cap-and-Trade Agreement Again Rejected
U.S. District Court Rejects Feds’ Latest Constitutional Attack on California’s Climate Change Initiative
Three strikes and you’re out. That adage, particularly timely given Major League Baseball’s belated start of its 2020 season this week, is just as apt when it comes to litigation as it is to our nation’s pastime. For the second time in four months, U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb has rejected a constitutional challenge …
CONTINUE READINGYes, It’s That Time of Year Again
If you read Legal Planet, you know why the work we do matters.
Like everyone else, I’m sure you find fundraising appeals annoying. That’s why we only do them twice a year. But there couldn’t be a more important time for the work we do, given the urgency of the climate crisis and the ongoing policy disaster in D.C. Yes, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Appellate Court Upholds Water Board’s Broad Drought Response Authority
Court of Appeal Rejects Water Users’ Legal Challenge to Board’s Emergency Regulations, Temporary Curtailment Orders
California’s Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District recently upheld the State Water Resources Control Board’s temporary emergency drought response regulations–enacted in 2014-15–as well as related curtailment orders the Board issued to specific water users to implement those regulations. In doing so, the Water Board rejected a legal challenge agricultural water users brought against …
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CONTINUE READINGOn This Date in History: Property Rights Won Big in the Supreme Court
June 29, 1992 was a great day for property rights advocates. But what came later wasn’t so good.
On this date in 1992, the property rights movement achieved its greatest victory in the form of the Supreme Court’s Lucas ruling. The campaign to protect property rights seemed to have huge momentum. But things didn’t work out that way. For property rights advocates, Lucas turned out to be a false dawn. Mr. Lucas owned …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Border Wall, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Separation of Powers
U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Unconstitutional Trump Administration’s Diversion of $2.5 Billion in Congressionally-Appropriated DOD Funds for Border Wall Construction
Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down the Trump Administration’s attempted diversion of $2.5 billion in federal funds Congress had appropriated for the Department of Defense. The Trump Administration did so in order to finance President Trump’s proposed, controversial border wall at a level Congress had expressly declined …
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CONTINUE READINGA small bit of good news for the role of science and expertise
EPA decides not to appeal court ruling vacating directive excluding agency grantees from advisory boards
There’s not much good news about US environmental governance (or, really, US governance at all) these days. So it seems worth noting when even a small morsel shows up. Today, EPA announced that it will not appeal a decision from the District Court for the Southern District of New York vacating a 2017 agency directive …
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CONTINUE READINGA New Report on Governing Climate Geoengineering
I suggest steps toward global governance of carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering
A new report on the governance of climate geoengineering — that is, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar geoengineering (or solar radiation modification, SRM) — has been released. International Governance Issues on Climate Engineering: Information for Policymakers was coordinated and issued by the International Risk Governance Center, edited by IRGC’s Marie-Valentine Florin, and commissioned by the …
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