Pollution & Health
Conditional Spending and the Clean Air Act
Ann suggests that Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion today in Sebelius might open up the Clean Air Act to new challenges. That seems right, but it also seems to me that there are two key differences between Medicaid and the CAA/Highway Spending nexus. 1) Medicaid is an entitlement program; in other words, federal money flows more …
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CONTINUE READINGDC Circuit’s Unanimous Decision to Uphold Greenhouse Gas Rules Across the Board Major Victory for EPA
As Dan just noted, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — in a unanimous decision — handed the U.S. EPA a sweeping victory in upholding across the board four separate components of the agency’s rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The opinion can be found here. A little background is in order …
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Two Clean Water Act Cases From Ninth Circuit
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in two high-profile Clean Water Act cases from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The justices simultaneously denied review in a major federalism decision, also from the Ninth Circuit, involving an industry challenge to a California Air Resources Board’s regulation requiring ships to use low-polluting fuels near …
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CONTINUE READINGUCLA and City of Los Angeles Publish First-Ever Detailed Long-Term Climate Forecast for a City’s Neighborhoods
A team led by UCLA researcher Dr. Alex Hall has released a study that projects temperature trends by neighborhood within the Los Angeles region for the mid-21st century. The report is the most sophisticated regional study of climate trends that has ever been developed, and is based on climate modeling two orders of magnitude higher …
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Declares Juries Responsible for Assessing Criminal Fines in Environmental Enforcement Cases
The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down its third and final environmental law decision of its current Term. (The case, Southern Union v. United States, is also significant for being the first criminal environmental enforcement case in the Court’s history) In a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled that criminal penalties sought by federal prosecutors in …
CONTINUE READINGIn the Supreme Court’s Crosshairs: the Ninth Circuit’s Environmental Jurisprudence
All eyes will be on the U.S. Supreme Court this week, as the justices conclude their current Term and, among other things, issue their long-awaited decision(s) on the constitutionality of the newly-enacted federal healthcare law. But the Supreme Court also has some other, key decisions to make as to whether to take up four controversial environmental cases from …
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Court of Appeal Upholds AB 32 Scoping Plan for Greenhouse Gas Reduction
Today, the California Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by environmental justice advocates seeking to scuttle the California Air Resources Board’s AB 32 Scoping Plan. EJ advocates objected to the Scoping Plan’s adoption of a cap-and-trade program to achieve some of the greenhouse gas reductions required under the landmark California law AB 32. Their primary …
CONTINUE READINGEmmett Center and NRDC Publish New Report on the Environmental, Energy, and Fiscal Benefits of Smart Roofs
My colleague and co-blogger Cara Horowitz has just published a new report on the potential benefits of adoption of “smart roofs” throughout Southern California. Looking Up: How Green Roofs and Cool Roofs Can Reduce Energy Use, Address Climate Change, and Protect Water Resources in Southern California, co-authored with UCLA Law alumnus Noah Garrison of NRDC, …
CONTINUE READINGHow to Turn a Forest Into a Desert
Anyone familiar with the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts v. EPA will also know Georgia v. Tennessee Copper, the landmark 1907 decision used by the Massachusetts court to hold that states have standing to challenge EPA’s failure to promulgate climate change regulations. Courtesy of the Journal of American History, I have discovered that there …
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CONTINUE READINGEJ Advocates Renew Efforts to Block Cap and Trade
There are weighty arguments against the EJ position. Even if EJ advocates remain unpersuaded, they should recognize that it is possible to disagree with their views in good faith.
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