Politics
Guest bloggers from Berkeley Law Environmental Law Society: Contextualizing Secretary Salazar’s Recent Decision on Oyster Farming at Point Reyes
NOTE: This post is by Legal Planet guest bloggers Nell Green Nylen, Heather Welles, Dan Carlin, Elisabeth Long, and Mary Loum, all members of UC Berkeley’s Environmental Law Society during the 2011–12 academic year. (See more details about the work of these law students and new lawyers at the end of the post.) If you …
CONTINUE READINGChallenging L.A. candidates to get specific on environmental sustainability
What would a sustainable Los Angeles look like? Most agree that we want L.A. to have air that doesn’t make us sick; we could do with a lot less traffic and better transit; we want clean, reliable power and water; we should fight pollution hotspots; and we want well-paying jobs that can sustain our communities …
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CONTINUE READINGHow the Democrats’ Supermajority Can Improve California’s Downtowns
Now that Democrats in California have achieved the Pete Wilson Supermajority in the legislature, they should focus on two key reforms to revitalize the state’s downtowns and ensure more efficient land use. First, the supermajority should put on the ballot a constitutional initiative to lower the threshold for passing local tax measures to fund transit. …
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CONTINUE READINGSenator Rubio Goes to Moscow
In Internet time, it’s already an old story, but worth repeating. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Tea Party guy, was asked in a GQ interview how old he believes the earth is. His reply: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the Irrelevance of Doha: The Demand for an Absence of International Regimes
Just compare for a moment the high expectations around Copenhagen in 2009 and the obscurity of Doha today, and you can quickly get a sense of the basic contemporary irrelevance of UN bodies in the creation of climate policy. (At the New York Times website as of this writing, Doha doesn’t even merit a mention …
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CONTINUE READINGWarren B. Rudman, 1930-2012
Former New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, who served from 1981 to 1993, has died at the age of 82. Lawyers and law professors throughout the country should mourn, although they probably will not. Hundreds if not thousands of men (and women) have served in the United States Congress since the creation of the Republic, and the vast …
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CONTINUE READINGGoodbye, Dan Lungren, Goodbye
It looks like Dan Lungren has lost his reelection bid for the Sacramento-area House seat, at least according to AP. His lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters was 4% — the only surprise being that he must have voted for something pro-environmental a couple of times in his career. (Oddly enough, he came …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: California Chamber of Commerce Sues over AB 32 Auction
The California Chamber of Commerce has launched the first industry lawsuit against the auction portion of California’s cap-and-trade program on the basis that auctioning off allowances constitutes an unauthorized, unconstitutional tax. The complaint was filed today in Sacramento Superior Court and seeks to stop the auction and have the auction regulations declared invalid. The Chamber argues …
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CONTINUE READINGTime for a California Oil Severance Tax
California’s new Democratic supermajority will be sorely tempted to raise taxes and fees across the board, which I have earlier suggested is a bad idea politically. But that hardly means that it should reject new revenues altogether, and the easiest place to start would be an oil severance tax. The oil severance tax works exactly …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy the GOP Should Embrace Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
There’s a lot of discussion these days about how the Republican Party should reposition itself in light of last week’s election results. Support for renewables and energy efficiency would make sense as part of a package of policy adjustments — it would strengthen the Party’s appeal to swing voters, women, and younger voters, with only …
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