Litigation

Libertarians for Environmental Red Tape!

  Libertarians have long castigated environmental review statutes, such as NEPA and CEQA, for trampling private property rights, the theory being that they make developing property so difficult and expensive that they are tantamount to disrupting those right. That’s why it was so odd to see the Pacific Legal Foundation advocating for more prolix environmental …

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Is USTR Trying to Increase China’s Carbon Emissions?

Our friends Daniel Firger and Michael Gerrard at Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law have written a useful new paper analyzing two important pending WTO climate cases.  Of these, the more important appears to be DS 419, in which the United States is challenging China’s wind energy subsidies. Firger and Gerrard note that …

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More on California Environmental Leader & Coastal Advocate Peter Douglas

Legal Planet colleague Jonathan Zasloff has previously written about the recently-announced retirement of long-time California Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas.  I’d like to add a few additional comments about Peter, my long-time mentor, client and friend. Peter Douglas has devoted the past four decades of his incredibly rich and active life to the cause of …

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Green litigation in China today

For those interested in the state of environmental litigation in China, China Dialogue, a bilingual site on China’s environment, ran an excellent series of articles last month on the topic.  I opened the series with an article entitled “Green litigation in China today.”  Here is an excerpt. Environmental litigation is difficult business in China. Even …

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Gray wolf update: rider upheld and Wyoming delisting a step closer

A few months ago, Rhead summarized litigation over the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s multiple attempts to remove the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened species, and noted environmental groups’ filing of a challenge to the appropriations rider which called for FWS to re-delist (is that a word?) the wolf in Montana …

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Third time not the charm for Columbia River salmon BiOp

U.S. District Judge James Redden has once again found the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Biological Opinion for operations of the Columbia River hydropower system inadequate to satisfy the Endangered Species Act. This is the third time in a decade that Judge Redden has been asked to review a Columbia River BiOp, the third presidential administration …

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New nonprofit Harbor Community Benefit Foundation launches, seeks Executive Director to oversee millions of dollars in community benefits projects in Los Angeles’s near-port communities

A historic agreement between the Port of Los Angeles and various stakeholders has resulted in the founding of a new nonprofit organization, the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation.  HCBF’s mission is “to carry out mitigation and other public benefit projects that assess, protect, and improve health, quality of life, and the natural environment, with a focus …

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Nevada Re-Discovers the Public Trust Doctrine

The Nevada Supreme Court was the source of a pleasant surprise earlier this month, when it issued a decision formally “adopting” the public trust doctrine as Nevada law. The opinion, Lawrence v. Clark County, involved a proposed transfer of land in and adjacent to the Colorado River near Laughlin, Nevada to Clark County officials. Nevada …

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Climate protester DeChristopher gets 2-year sentence

Tim DeChristopher, the young man who bid on federal oil and gas leases as a form of protest against global warming, was sentenced yesterday to 2 years in prison, 3 additional years on probation, and a $10,000 fine. DeChristopher was convicted in March of placing false bids at a federal auction, after his attempt to …

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EPA finalizes mountaintop removal guidance

Cross-posted at CPRBlog and The Berkeley Blog. After a three-and-a-half month delay for White House review, EPA has finalized its guidance for review of mountaintop removal mining permits in Appalachia. I needn’t have worried that the White House would roll EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on this one. The final guidance maintains the strong stand EPA …

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