Regulation
How To Increase Deployment of Energy Storage To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The white papers keep coming. Today, UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law released a new report, “The Power of Energy Storage: How to Increase Deployment in California to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” to examine policies that California and federal leaders can implement to increase the state’s energy storage capacity. As California seeks to expand …
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CONTINUE READINGGOP Will Filibuster the PACE Bill, Unless…
A prediction: the Republicans will filibuster Mike Thompson’s bill concerning PACE once it gets to the Senate. At this point, the Republicans (led by Senator Mitch McConnell, pictured right) are simply uninterested in principles or policy. That’s particular true in the shadow of the upcoming midterms: stopping the bill will simply be another way to …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: Jerry Brown Sues FHFA and Fannie & Freddie over PACE
As I suspected, we’ve got a lawsuit over the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s position on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). (Background on PACE and the controversy here.) California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced today that his agency is suing these entities in federal court over their unwillingness to …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Property Rights (Part IV)
Environmental property rights, such as tradable permits, conservation trusts, and the public trust doctrine, can change the constitutional landscape of environmental law.
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Property Rights (Part III)
An environmental property right (EPR) can be defined as an enforceable interest deriving from an environmental asset such as air quality or an undisturbed forest. EPRs are diverse and varied. Most EPRs are derived from statute rather than the common law, and many are of recent vintage. Some EPRs are marketable; others are not. Fundamentally, …
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CONTINUE READINGFHFA strangles PACE clean energy financing program
Yesterday, the Federal Housing Finance Administration, the agency that regulates bankrupt mortgage insurers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, issued a letter effectively destroying the promising energy efficiency and renewable energy financing program called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). I blogged about Fannie and Freddie’s lender letters on the PACE program a few weeks ago. PACE …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Property Rights: Part II
The previous post in this series introduced the idea of environmental property rights. There are a surprising number of EPRs. A complete listing would include at least nine kinds of EPRs: In addition to the public trust doctrine and tradable permits (which were discussed in the first part of the series), here are seven more: …
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CONTINUE READINGMayor Villaraigosa Betrays Environmentalism AGAIN
A few days ago, I noted that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes to talk a good game when it comes to Greening the city, but conveniently abandons plans when they become politically difficult or require anything like a normal attention span. I was more right than I thought. I mentioned that the Mayor had …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Property Rights: Part I
This is the first of a four part series on environmental property rights (EPRs). EPRs are property rights that are designed to help protect the environment. They are either rights to prevent environmental degradation or limited rights to impair the environment. A couple of examples may help explain the concept. 1. The Public Trust Doctrine. …
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CONTINUE READINGFumigants Take Center Stage in California
I wrote previously about the strange story of methyl iodide, a chemical purposely used by researchers to cause cancer in labs, being proposed for use as a fumigant for strawberry production in California. The New York Times recently covered a legislative hearing by the California Senate Food and Agriculture Committee in which the members of an external scientific review panel lambasted California …
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