Regulatory Policy
Diagnosing Why More Growers Aren’t In California’s Cannabis System
Understanding why more outdoor cultivators aren’t entering into the new legal regulatory system for cannabis is important for reducing the environmental impacts of cannabis cultivation
When California voters legalized cannabis in 2016, a key argument for legalization was that legalization would benefit the environment. If cannabis growers necessarily operated outside the law, then they had little incentive to comply with environmental regulatory standards. Instead, cannabis growers might trespass on private and public lands, cause significant damage to habitat, use illegal …
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CONTINUE READINGAnti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency
Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
Should Biden declare a national climate emergency? There are certainly arguments that, on balance, it would be better not to take that step. Some opponents argue that declaring a climate emergency would be horribly anti-democratic, polarizing, and counterproductive. Those arguments seem to me seriously overstated. I’d like to go through the major arguments against declaring …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Harmful Was Trump’s COVID Response?
We know it was bad, but how much of the U.S. death rate can be attributed to him rather than circumstances?
The U.S. COVID response went badly in 2020. How much was because Trump was Trump? That is, if Trump had been a moderately competent but imperfect leader, facing a diverse population with a significant resistance to public health measures, how many lives would have been saved? That’s not a question that anyone can answer with …
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CONTINUE READINGCost-Benefit Analysis and the Biden EPA
The recent rescission of a Trump rule hints at how the Biden Administration views the role of cost-benefit analysis.
In its closing days, the Trump Administration issued a rule designed to tilt EPA’s cost-benefit analysis of air pollution regulations in favor of industry. Last week, EPA rescinded the rule. The rescission was no surprise, given that the criticisms of the Trump rule by economists as well as environmentalists. EPA’s explanation for the rescission was …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Contributors Clara Barnosky, Jane Sadler, Richard Yates, and Zachary Zimmerman: The Biden Administration’s First 100 Days of Reversing Environmental Rollbacks
An Early Analysis of Progress and Priorities in the Executive Branch
In the final months of the Trump presidency, we (a team of students working with U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE)) compiled a database of over 200 environmental rollbacks enacted during the Trump administration. These rollbacks characterized the administration’s aggressive focus on deregulation of industry and disregard of protections for the …
CONTINUE READINGThe Ninth Circuit Makes EPA an Offer It Can’t Refuse
Regulate chlorpyrifos or else!
Chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely used pesticides in America, although it has been banned in the EU. Last week, the Ninth Circuit took the extraordinary step of ordering EPA pointblank to ban or reduce traces of chlorpyrifos in food. A dissenter accused the majority of misreading the statute in question and abusing its …
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CONTINUE READINGTime to End FERC’s Misguided Effort to Fix Wholesale Power Prices
A FERC ruling tilts the playing field against renewable energy. It should be repealed.
In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decided that state clean energy policies were distorting energy markets operated by PJM, the country’s largest grid region. That, at least, was the view of the Commissioners who were appointed by Republican presidents. PJM, which runs the electricity grid more or less from Chicago to Maryland, has …
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CONTINUE READINGBiden and the Environment: The First 100 Days
Biden has set up a lot of future actions. But he’s already got some notches on his belt.
Tomorrow marks Biden’s first 100 days in office. He’s appointed a great climate team and is negotiating an infrastructure bill that focuses on climate change. With luck, those actions will produce major environmental gains down the road. There are also some solid gains in the form of actions that have already come to fruition. Here’s …
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CONTINUE READINGU.C. Davis School of Law Hosts “CEQA at 50” Conference on April 16th
Virtual Event Commemorates Past, Predicts Future of the California Environmental Quality Act
Now a half-century old, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) remains California’s most important, cross-cutting and controversial environmental law. Originally patterned on the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, CEQA has over the decades become a more powerful law than its federal counterpart. And while numerous other states have adopted their own “little NEPA” statutes, CEQA …
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CONTINUE READINGDo regulators and utility managers have irreconcilable differences or mutual goals?
By Alida Cantor, Luke Sherman, Anita Milman, and Mike Kiparsky
Do regulators and utility managers have irreconcilable differences or mutual goals? By Alida Cantor, Luke Sherman, Anita Milman, and Mike Kiparsky. What do climate change, aging infrastructure, and urban population growth have in common? They all pose major challenges – especially for water infrastructure in the United States. And many utilities are having a …
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