Land Use
California Supreme Court Upholds Local Government Bans on Pot Dispensaries
In its most important land use decision since 2011, the California Supreme Court has upheld local governments’ power to ban marijuana dispensaries within their jurisdictions. Last week the court unanimously rejected marijuana advocates’ claim that such local bans are preempted by California state law. The Supreme Court’s opinion in City of Riverside v. Inland Empire …
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CONTINUE READINGThe problem of stale NEPA reviews
There’s been a mini-boom in uranium mining in the United States, in part because of increased interest in nuclear power as a partial response to climate change. Using nuclear power to reduce greenhouse gases has been quite controversial because of the obvious risks that nuclear power poses (exemplified by the Fukushima disaster in Japan). But …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Justice, Metrics & California’s San Joaquin Valley
This week the California Environmental Protection Agency issued a disturbing but worthwhile report on environmental justice issues in California. That report confirms what many environmental justice advocates and state residents already assumed: that the San Joaquin Valley is–far and away–the most environmentally-challenged region of the state. According to the CalEPA press release accompanying the report, …
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CONTINUE READING(Another) Bad Day for Economists
One interesting project for future intellectual historians will be figuring out how economics became the queen of the social scientists when virtually none of their predictions have come true and so much of their empirical work is downright shoddy. Perhaps it will lie in the way ideology can take over the discipline because of data …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Bureau of Land Management Violated NEPA When Selling Oil and Gas Leases in California
On April 8, a federal magistrate judge issued the first major ruling in a California fracking lawsuit, finding that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to take the necessary “hard look” at the impact of hydraulic fracturing when it sold oil and gas leases in California. …
CONTINUE READINGOn the politics of the Keystone pipeline
This article from the New York Times a couple of days ago describes how President Obama, on a fundraising visit here in the Bay Area, made clear how difficult environmental politics are for a President in the midst of a recession – especially the Great Recession: Appearing at the home of an outspoken critic of …
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CONTINUE READINGClear Views in the High Desert
If you are looking for a politically progressive city, Lancaster, California would not make it on your list. Located in the deeply conservative Antelope Valley of north Los Angeles County, it has attracted attention by, inter alia, 1) electing Pete Knight, one of the most vicious anti-gay politicians in the country, to a series of state …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Grants Review in Pacific Rivers Council Case
Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a major forestry and NEPA case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: U.S. Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, No. 12-623. The case will be argued and decided in the Court’s next (2013-14) Term. The issues the justices have agreed to consider in Pacific Rivers Council are threefold: …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat IS a Nuisance, Anyway?
If you’re a Property teacher, you have probably taught nuisance law. If you are a Land Use teacher, you have probably taught Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, which relies on nuisance law to establishing “inherent limitations on title.” More specifically, you have probably taught the Restatement standard for nuisance, which states that an activity …
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CONTINUE READINGTakings, Standing, and Those Nasty Neighbors
Most lawyers reading this page are familiar with Nollan v. Calif. Coastal Comm’n, the 1987 Supreme Court case holding that exactions in exchange for land use permits must show an “essential nexus” between the purported harm generated by the permit and aims of the exaction. (More precisely, Nollan gave heightened scrutiny to finding that nexus.). …
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