Land Use
Is It Green to Occupy a Vacant Urban Lot and Turn It Into a Farm?
A local branch of the Occupy movement has taken over a parcel of land near my house here in the Bay Area. The parcel is an agricultural research field owned by UC Berkeley. The protestors are apparently upset that Berkeley is considering turning some of its land into a development: specifically, senior housing, and commercial …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Summary Report on California’s Law to Streamline Environmental Review of Infill Projects
As this blog has chronicled, California has undertaken some ambitious efforts to streamline environmental review for certain infill projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). One of the most recent and potentially far-reaching attempts, SB 226 (Simitian, 2011), creates an in-depth administrative process to define the standards for what constitutes a “good” infill project. …
CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis Issues Nitrates in Drinking Water Study
The University of California at Davis has issued an important new study assessing the public health hazards associated with nitrates in California drinking water. The study, led by U.C. Davis Professors Thomas Harter and Jay Lund, contains some important and disturbing findings. The full study can be found here, the Executive Summary here. The new …
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CONTINUE READINGStopping High Speed Sprawl
California Governor Jerry Brown has doubled down on his support for the state’s proposed high speed rail system, despite the uncertainty about how to pay for it and growing public opposition. But who can blame him? If the rail system does get built, it will be the defining infrastructure project in the state for generations …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Rejects Montana’s River Ownership Claims
The U.S. Supreme Court has issued its decision in PPL Montana v. State of Montana, a fascinating case that combines the colorful history of the American West, the issue of the public’s access to state waterways, and a dispute over hefty royalties claimed to be owed the State of Montana for unpermitted use of public …
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CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Dumps U.S. Forest Service’s Sierra Plan, Bureaucratic-Speak
The U.S. Court of Appeals recently issued a major decision invalidating the U.S. Forest Service’s 2004 Plan directing the USFS’s management of the 11 national forests (totaling 11.5 million acres) in the Sierra Nevada range. A divided Ninth Circuit panel found that the environmental impact statement accompanying the Bush Administration plan–which loosened logging and grazing …
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CONTINUE READINGHow “Moneyball” Can Make A Great Downtown
Michael Lewis’s Moneyball was more than a book about how the small-market Oakland Athletics employed unconventional, statistics-based methods to beat bigger-money teams in the game of baseball. The genius of the book — and I’m probably biased here as a lifelong Oakland A’s fan — was its ability to expose human beings’ flawed sense of …
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CONTINUE READINGDoes Public Transit Improve Air Quality?
Yihsu Chen and Alexander Whalley of UC Merced think they know. They have analyzed some useful data from the opening of Taipei’s new subway, in a recent article in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: The transportation sector is a major source of air pollution worldwide, yet little is known about the effects of transportation infrastructure …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s New Clean Car Rules: How Can They Succeed?
Yesterday, the California Air Resources Board significantly toughened the state’s regulations on carbon emissions from automobiles: The package of Air Resources Board regulations would require auto manufacturers to offer more zero- or very low-emission cars such as battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles in California starting with model year 2018. By 2025, …
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CONTINUE READINGAttention K-Mart Shoppers! Get With the Program
I’ve blogged before about Asia Pulp & Paper, which has one of the worst records on destroying critical species habitat in its logging operations and abusing human rights in the process. (Not surprisingly, it also has a fake certification from greenwahser Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification). Well, the tigers (and humans) have some …
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