Legislation
Signing AB 1167 Would be a Win for Energy Affordability
A bill that seeks to protect ratepayers from subsidizing utility lobbying still awaits Governor Newsom’s signature.
The 2025 legislative session has been a banner year for energy affordability legislation in California. The legislature passed—and the governor signed—a suite of six major bills that the governor and legislative leaders have championed in an effort to bring down energy costs for Californians. However, the job is not yet done. Governor Newsom has not …
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CONTINUE READINGFirst Monday? More Like ‘First Moanday.’
Since conservatives got a supermajority on the Supreme Court, it’s been on an anti-environmental tear.
Never say never. Maybe someday the Court will surprise us with a big win for the environment. But it would be foolish to count on that. We can also hope that the Court will do other good things, such as reining in Trump’s executive overreach. But it would be foolish to count on the Court to take a stand in favor of environmental protection.
CONTINUE READINGOne Easy Fix to Prepare for the Next Big Disaster
A little-known drafting wrinkle in current state law is impeding local governments from springing into action after disasters.
Along with my fellow Angelenos, this year I’ve had a front-row seat to the challenges of regional recovery from a major disaster event. The January 2025 Eaton and Palisades wildfires devastated LA-area communities, including two—the Palisades and Altadena—locally renowned for their distinctive neighborhood feel. In the aftermath, the response highlighted challenges at every level of …
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CONTINUE READINGPermitting reform in the Trump Administration
It’s hard to do a deal when one side can’t be trusted to keep their side of the bargain
There’s more chatter about permitting reform again in Congress. I’m supportive of the concept, and thought the deal on the table at the end of the Biden Administration was probably worth doing. So there are now bipartisan efforts to amend NEPA, and also to do a broader permitting reform bill. I’ll leave specific analyses of …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Takes a Stab at Climate and Energy Costs
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
It’s remarkable that with everything else that’s raging, climate and energy bills still managed to dominate the legislative session that just wrapped in Sacramento. After all, the reason lawmakers were still at work this past Saturday — the day after the legislative session was supposed to end — was that negotiations on climate bills pushed …
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CONTINUE READINGHouse Natural Resources Committee Holds Hearing on Another Ill-Conceived Permitting Reform Bill
The SPEED Act takes aim at the scientific foundation of environmental review
The proposed iSPEED bill includes provisions that would fundamentally compromise the integrity of federal decision making processes by allowing—or even compelling—the government to ignore scientific and technical information critical to understanding the effects of a federal action and how those effects could be mitigated.
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s War on Wind is Dumb. It also Makes Sense.
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The Trump administration’s attack on wind energy feels dumber and dumber every day. Let’s see if we can make it make some sense. After that, the major headlines of the week. Last Friday, his Transportation Department withdrew $679 million for offshore wind projects at 12 ports. Last month, the administration sent a stop-work order to …
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CONTINUE READINGLeveraging Cap-And-Trade Proceeds for Long-Term Utility Bill Savings and Pollution Reduction
State leaders have an opportunity to expand the benefits with cap-and-trade reauthorization.
California’s decades-long role as a climate action pioneer is facing serious headwinds. While the Trump administration and its allies have launched a full-scale attack on clean technologies, state leaders are also wrestling with an electorate now more focused on lowering prices than environmental protection. Energy costs stand in the middle. This dynamic is playing out …
CONTINUE READINGStates Should Not Wait to “Make Polluters Pay”
Guest contributors Laura Fox and Doug Kysar write that now is the right time for more states to adopt climate accountability laws, despite ongoing legal challenges.
As states weigh whether to adopt climate accountability legislation like Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act, some are hesitating out of concern that the Second Circuit’s decision in City of New York v. Chevron Corp., 993 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 2021), dooms such efforts. That concern is misplaced. In fact, now is precisely the time for states …
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CONTINUE READINGGas Utilities Can Do Better on Neighborhood Electrification
The state’s largest gas utilities are trying to delay priority zones for decarbonization and to block public access to important data. The CPUC should push them to do more.
Last fall, I wrote about the promise of SB 1221, a law that created a pathway for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to approve pilot projects that will support priority “neighborhood decarbonization zones” to transition away from building gas service toward zero-emissions alternatives, including electrification and thermal energy networks. Now, the gas utilities have …
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