General
Tales From the Front: A Field Trip to the Utah Monuments
Personal Reflections on the Raging Debate Over Trump’s Utah Monument Reductions
One of most highly visible disputes arising out of the Trump Administration’s multifaceted efforts to roll back and nullify the natural resources policies of previous administrations is the decision by President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Zinke to substantially reduce two national monuments in Utah created by former President Obama under the Antiquities Act. President Trump’s December …
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CONTINUE READINGRegister Now: Toward Zero-Emission Freight At Southern California’s Ports
Free daylong conference at UCLA on Friday, June 8th will examine the prospects, pitfalls & policy needs
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach bring more goods into the U.S. than any other ports in the country. Yet together the ports are the single largest source of air pollution in Southern California. Harbor commissioners have adopted an ambitious plan to transition to cleaner fuels for goods movement in and around the …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy California gets to write its own auto emissions standards: 5 questions answered
Authored by Nicholas Bryner and Meredith Hankins
Rush hour on the Hollywood Freeway, Los Angeles, September 9, 2016. AP Photo/Richard Vogel This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Editor’s note: On April 2, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the Trump administration plans to revise tailpipe emissions standards negotiated by the Obama administration for motor …
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change in the Courts
What’s next in climate change litigation?
There are three important climate lawsuits pending in federal court. Here’s the state of play and what to expect next. In the first case, Oakland and San Francisco sued leading oil companies. They claim that the companies’ production and sale of fossil fuels is a public nuisance under California state law. They seek an abatement …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Paradox of Electricity Deregulation
This is one setting where “deregulation” is a lot more complicated than regulation.
You might think that deregulation means sweeping away regulations, which ought to make the law much simpler. But the opposite is true in the electricity sphere. The regulatory system in states taking the traditional fixed-price approach is actually much easier to understand than the so-called deregulation method. Instead of saying “deregulation” it would be better …
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CONTINUE READINGSand Trap
You can add sand to your list of global environmental crises.
You already know about the climate crisis, fisheries collapse, ocean acidification, and the biodiversity crisis. Now you can add a fifth one: the global sand crisis. The demand for sand is exploding due to burgeoning construction in China and other developing countries. The result: water bodies are being devastated by massive dredging operations. Lake Poyang …
CONTINUE READINGWill Pruitt join Sessions In Expanding the Federal Government’s Attack on California?
California Vehicle Emissions Standards At Stake
It’s no secret that the Trump Administration has it out for California. Attorney General Jeff Sessions just sued the state for its refusal to aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement in detaining undocumented immigrants. Donald Trump just claimed that highly popular Governor Jerry Brown is doing a terrible job, despite Brown leading California out of a …
CONTINUE READINGCLEE Launches California Climate Policy Dashboard
New resource offers snapshot of state’s climate laws, programs, and regulators
The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law has launched the California Climate Policy Dashboard, a new web resource offering an overview of the key laws, programs and agencies driving California’s pioneering effort to tackle climate change, including: The landmark greenhouse gas emission reduction laws, AB 32 and …
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CONTINUE READINGContentious California Beach Access Case Heads to U.S. Supreme Court
Longstanding Martins Beach Controversy May Well Capture Justices’ Attention
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018-19 Term is already shaping up as a big one for environmental law in general and the longstanding tension between private property rights and environmental regulation in particular. The Court has already agreed to hear and decide two cases next Term raising the latter set of issues: one involves the question …
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CONTINUE READINGGlobal market for ecosystem services surges to $36 billion in annual transactions
New article in Nature Sustainability tracks global payments for ecosystems services
In the early 1990s, New York City began paying for land management in the Catskills watershed to ensure safe drinking water for the city, avoiding the cost of building an expensive water treatment plant. New York City provides just one example of a growing number of programs – called payments for ecosystem services (PES) – …
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