Regulation
California Slowing Down on Cap and Trade
Yesterday, Mary Nichols slipped a bit of a bombshell into testimony before the California Senate Select Committee on the Environment, the Economy and Climate Change. She announced that the state’s Air Resources Board is planning to “initiate” the cap and trade program in 2012 but not “start the requirements for compliance” until 2013. This effectively …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Clean Water Act/Wetlands Case
2012 is shaping up as a busy year for environmental law at the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, as the Court recessed for the summer, the justices granted certiorari in a second environmental case that it will hear and decide in its 2011-12 Term: Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 10-1062. Sackett involves a development dispute between an Idaho …
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CONTINUE READINGA New Threat to Regional Government & Environmental Quality at Lake Tahoe
Back in the early `70’s, Bob Dylan wrote (and sang), “What looks large from a distance, up close ain’t never that big.” That Dylan lyric came to mind when reports recently emerged of the latest political controversy involving Lake Tahoe. Both nationally and internationally, there’s been substantial praise for the pioneering efforts at regional planning …
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CONTINUE READINGHow the Financial Crisis Destroyed Standing Doctrine
Environmental scholars are very familiar — perhaps too familiar — with how the constitutionalization of standing doctrine has restricted the ability of environmental groups to challenge agency actions. I’ve recently read several books about the financial crisis, and it’s occurred to me that Wall Street innovation may have made traditional standing doctrine a dead letter. My …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Montana Rivers/Public Trust Case
Understandably, today most U.S. Supreme Court mavens focused their attention on several new opinions the Court issued in key cases–including the major climate change decision (in American Electric Power v. Connecticut) about which Dan, Jonathan and I all blogged earlier today. Not to be overlooked, however, is the fact that today the Court also granted …
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CONTINUE READINGConn. v. AEP: Never Underestimate Congressional Power to Do Damage
Dan’s and Rick’s posts very helpfully summarize the impacts of the Court’s decision today. (They were also probably written at the same time: great minds think alike). But I’m a little more pessimistic than Dan is concerning Congressional action. He suggests that the decision makes it more complex for Congress to repeal EPA jurisdiction since …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Rejects States’ Climate Change Nuisance Lawsuit
The Supreme Court today issued its long-awaited decision in an important climate change case, American Electric Power v. Connecticut. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-174.pdf As expected, the Court rejected a public nuisance lawsuit that a coalition of states and private land trusts had brought against the owners of Midwestern coal-fired power plants, challenging their massive greenhouse gas emissions on …
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CONTINUE READINGAir Resources Board Releases New Environmental Assessment of Cap and Trade to Comply with Judge’s Order
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is covering all its bases in responding to a judge’s order that CARB violated the California Enviornmental Quality Act (CEQA) in adopting its scoping plan to implement AB 32 (the state’s climate change legislation). As I reported last week, CARB has won an order from the appeals court allowing the state …
CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: AB 32 Cap and Trade Program Allowed to Proceed Pending Appeal
The 1st Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal has temporarily stayed (in other words lifted) the trial court’s injunction preventing the California Air Resources Board from implementing its cap and trade program for greenhouse gas emitters. As Cara blogged previously, the trial court in Association of Irritated Residents v. ARB issued a writ of …
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CONTINUE READINGTough Political Choices On Climate Are Hardly Unique to U.S: The Case of Germany and Nuclear Power
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made headlines this week when she announced that the country would phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022. The Fukishima nuclear crisis in Japan led Germany to review its reliance on nuclear power and the result of that review was Merkel’s decision to shut down the country’s existing plants. Here’s …
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