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The Battle for the Senate

The 2022 elections will have repercussions in 2024 and beyond.

How much does control of the Senate matter for purposes of environmental law?  If Congress remains in Democratic hands, the Democrats can make another run at a reconciliation bill. Even if the House flips, control of the Senate still matters a lot, though the reasons are more complicated. The State of Play. Here’s where things …

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Wetlands, the Clean Water Act & the Supreme Court: the Sacketts Return to Washington

Justices Grant Review (Again) in the Sacketts’ Longstanding Wetlands Battle With the Government

  This week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Sackett v. USEPA, No. 21-454, an important appeal involving the scope of federal authority to regulate wetlands under the Clean Water Act. If the Sackett litigation sounds familiar, it should: the case has been pending for well over a decade, and this is …

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Income-Targeted Environmental Policies, Episode 1

An introduction to AMI

This is the first post in a short series on income-targeted environmental policies. Read the second post, on LA’s Transit-Oriented Communities program, here. As environmental law becomes more concerned with the equity of policy outcomes, income-targeted policy elements are becoming more and more common. This should be a good thing: income is closely correlated with …

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Wildfires, CEQA, Climate Change & the Courts

Recent Court Decisions Halt Building Projects, Invalidate CEQA Reviews for Failing to Assess Wildfire Hazards

Environmental and conservation groups have for a number of years attempted to convince California courts of the need to integrate climate change considerations into environmental analyses prepared under the state’s most important environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  However, the California judiciary has demonstrated little appetite for doing so.  Until now. Recently, courts …

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Positive Signs That California’s New Housing Laws Will be Enforced

Recent Actions by California Courts & State Officials Are Encouraging, & Push Back Against Local Government Recalcitrance on the Housing Reform Front

In a recent post, I analyzed the California Legislature’s recent passage and Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing into law of two important bills–SB 9 and SB 10–designed to confront California’s well-documented housing crisis.  Those laws represent but the latest chapter in the Legislature’s record-setting enactment of numerous statutes in recent years to incentivize and mandate construction …

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Losing Justice Hobbs, Western Water Expert and Valued Mentor

View of the South Platte River from the Waterton Canyon Trail. Photo by Nell Green Nylen.

When former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory J. Hobbs passed away recently, just weeks shy of his 77th birthday, he left a gaping hole in the hearts of many.  Not just family and close friends.  But people across the Colorado legal community, the broader Western water community, and a far-flung network that includes Berkeley Law …

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What Should EPA Do After Repealing the Clean Power Plan?

The CPP has been overtaken by events, but EPA does have some options.

My last post argued that EPA should immediately repeal the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. The Plan was Obama’s signature climate policy. It attempted to move away from fossil fuels and toward zero-carbon sources like solar power to supply electricity. The Plan  has been overtaken by later events, and it seems clear that the Supreme …

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The Latest Chapter in Los Angeles’ Century-Long Water War With the Eastern Sierra’s People & Environment

LADWP’s Unilateral Revocation of Water Allocation to Mono County’s Farmers & Ranchers Triggers County’s CEQA Challenge

There LADWP goes again. Recently the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced it was walking away from its longstanding obligation to provide Mono County residents and the environment with a tiny fraction of the water it transports from Mono County to LADWP’s urban customers in Los Angeles.  When efforts by county officials to …

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Guest Contributor Sharaban Tahura Zaman: COP26 outcome on Carbon Markets: Takeaways for the Global South

SEC Armadillo, Glasgow

Where is the Global South heading with carbon market mechanisms in the coming decade?

As a government delegate, I have been involved in the UN climate negotiation process since 2017 to uphold Bangladesh’s and the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group’s position. After an unsuccessful COP in Madrid (2019), as a Bangladeshi citizen (a country often referred to as “ground zero” for its climate vulnerability) I had to wait another …

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What today’s students think about climate change

Voices from a climate law classroom

Teaching provides a chance to see important issues anew, through our students’ eyes. So for my last Climate Law and Policy class at UCLA Law this semester, I once again asked my students to tell me what they are thinking about the future of climate policy in light of today’s global circumstances, keeping in mind …

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