Most recent 40 articles: Legal Planet
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30 Major Climate Initiatives Under Biden - Legal Planet  (May 13) |
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May 13 · In his four years in office, Donald Trump rolled back essentially every existing federal policy to limit climate change. The picture under the Biden Administration has been a dramatic reversal, enacting lots of environmental protections and starting to spend tens of billions of dollars. By one count, Biden has overturned more than two dozen of Trump actions affecting the fossil fuel industry. And we could see yet another U-turn in climate policy after the November election. Trump recently told Big Oil executives over dinner that they should give him $1 billion in campaign donations because he planned to immediately reverse climate regulations, the New York Times and Washington ... Read more ... |
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Pouring Gas on a Five Alarm Fire - Legal Planet  (May 13) |
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May 13 · At a dinner for oil industry CEOs last week, Trump promised to fulfill the industry’s every dream in return for a billion dollars in donations. We urgently need now is more federal climate action, not less. Yet the reelection of Donald Trump would wipe out years of federal climate action. It’s important to understand fully not just the immediate effect, but the permanent impact of a second Trump term. The short term damage would be bad enough. We know that Trump would exit the Paris Agreement (again). He would also roll back all of Biden’s climate regulations. We know he would stop enforcing environmental requirements. We know all that because it’s what he did ... Read more ... |
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Can GoGreen Advance California’s Home Decarbonization Goals? - Legal Planet  (May 9) |
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May 9 · Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission released a report evaluating the state’s GoGreen home energy financing program. Residential buildings are responsible for about 10 percent of state greenhouse gas emissions, and home decarbonization routinely ranks among the most challenging of our many emissions reduction challenges. Our buildings and electrical distribution grid are old, retrofit projects are complex and time-consuming, and few Californians have the energy–let alone the capital–to upgrade their heating and cooling systems, appliances, windows, and more. This problem is, of course, most acute for lower-income homeowners and residents of multifamily buildings. Read more ... |
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Mobilizing Environmental Voters - Legal Planet  (May 9) |
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May 9 · Environmental issues such as climate change are broadly shared concerns, but for many they are low priority issues. Obviously, environmental advocates would like to raise the profile of those issues among voters. But it is also true that the environment is a priority for some people who don’t vote. Some efforts are underway to change that. I’ll describe three of them in this post, starting with the best-known group. League of Conservation Voters: Climate Vote 2024. This program involves research and polling, testing climate messaging, and hiring and training canvassers. LCV claims that its program to “reach and persuade 1.58 million specific voters in battleground states - ... Read more ... |
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California Seeks to Protect Homes from Excessive Indoor Heat - Legal Planet  (May 8) |
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May 8 · Guest contributor Cassandra Vo is a J.D. Candidate at UCLA Law (’25) specializing in environmental law. Hotter, deadlier, and more frequent heat waves have become one of the most surefire signs of a changing climate in our day-to-day lives. California recognized the need for action on this issue in 2022 by bringing to life AB 209, one section of which centers around creating better indoor heat safety in homes. That should include mobile home communities, which are too often left out of this discussion. Specifically, AB 209 requires the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to do two things: (1) recommend a maximum safe indoor air temperature ... Read more ... |
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Western States Should Opt In to Regionalized Electricity Markets - Legal Planet  (May 7) |
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May 7 · In the West, the benefits of electricity market regionalization appear more attractive than ever. “Regionalization” refers to efforts to expand coordination between Western states to buy and sell wholesale electricity through centralized federal power markets. Increased coordination, made possible through regional transmission organizations (RTOs – independent non-profit organizations that operate the grid and oversee the operation of centralized energy markets), has the potential to enhance grid reliability while reducing costs and emissions. Currently, although RTOs are common in the East and Midwest, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is the only RTO in the ... Read more ... |
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Climate Policy and the Audacity of Hope - Legal Planet  (Apr 29) |
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Apr 29 · The bad news is that we’re not yet on track to avoid dangerous climate change. But there’s also good news: We’ve taken important steps that will ease further progress. We should resist the allure of easy optimism, given the scale of the challenges. Neither should we wallow in despair. There’s a good basis for hope. To begin with, there’s been major progress in U.S. climate policy. The first half of Biden’s term saw the passage of three bills that collectively devote about half a trillion dollars to emission reduction: the Infrastructure Law’s support for emission cuts in transportation, the CHIPS Act with research and development funding for clean energy ... Read more ... |
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LGBTQ People Face Greater Climate Risks - Legal Planet  (Apr 26) |
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Apr 26 · In August of 2005 when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, the combination of torrential rain and flawed infrastructure proved deadly. More than 1,800 people died and the price tag for the damage quickly rose to the tens of billions of dollars. In the chaotic disaster response that followed, several communities were disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination during recovery. Among them: LGBTQ residents. They were often overlooked in local and national relief efforts, which routinely failed to recognize households of same-sex couples as “families.” Some LGBTQ families faced separation during resettlement. Many more people struggled to apply for relief ... Read more ... |
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EPA’s New Power Plant Rules Have Dropped. What Happens Next? - Legal Planet  (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · EPA has just issued a cluster of new rules designed to limit carbon emissions from power generators. Once upon a time, the presumption would have been that the rules would quietly go into effect, until someday a court rules on their validity. These days, we can expect a lot of action to be begin almost right away. First, we are likely to lawsuits filed before opponents have even had a chance to read the new rules. Opponents see the new rules as vulnerable because the Supreme Court struck down Obama’s earlier rules in West Virginia v. EPA. (Here’s a brief explanation of that decision.) EPA believes - and I agree - that it has avoided the fatal flaw the Court saw in the ... Read more ... |
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Why the New Climate Reg for Coal is a Perfectly Normal EPA Rule - Legal Planet  (Apr 25) |
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Apr 25 · Is EPA’s new climate rule a sneaky effort to eliminate coal or a valid pollution standard? Some new arguments made by EPA convince me that it’s pursuing a time-tested approach to pollution control. It’s not that EPA is trying to grind down the industry. It’s that the economics of coal-fired plants are so fragile that a mild breeze would give them pneumonia. Opponents are sure to legally challenge EPA’s new rule to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. And they are equally certain to argue that EPA is just trying to do indirectly what the Supreme Court said it couldn’t do directly: push coal out of the U.S. energy mix. ... Read more ... |
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Climate Action for Earth Day - Legal Planet  (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · Don’t believe what you’ve heard. There is one single thing you can give up that will help address climate change: voter apathy. One-third of eligible voters - 80 million Americans - did not vote in the presidential election last time around. Why not? Because they just “weren’t registered” or they “weren’t interested in politics,” according to this Ipsos survey. It’s so much worse for local elections. Turnout in 10 of America’s largest cities was less than 15%, according to the Who Votes for Mayor project. In Dallas, just 6% voted in recent local elections. Earth Day is a perfect day to register to vote and to make sure people in your life are registered - and fully aware ... Read more ... |
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Could Trump Cancel the IRA? - Legal Planet  (Apr 22) |
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Apr 22 · The Inflation Reduction Act is Biden’s signature climate initiative. Trump has already called for repealing it, and so have some Republicans in Congress. Given the IRA’s huge cuts in carbon emissions, that would be a tragedy. Can he do that? He would certainly face some very significant barriers. Trump would need Republican majorities in the Senate (very likely) and the House (less likely). When Trump was in office before, the Republicans found it difficult to pass legislation, and today’s GOP House can barely manage to function. Although they’ve expressed vociferous opposition to the IRA, it wouldn’t be at the top of their list of legislative priorities. And the IRA is ... Read more ... |
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Filling in the Picture: The Latest From Kennedy about Climate - Legal Planet  (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · I did a post on Thursday flagging some “unanswered questions” about RFK, Jr. and climate change. I had no intention of ever posting about his campaign again, let alone this soon. But by a wild coincidence, E&E News released a story the very next day about its interview with Kennedy that addressed those questions. Some of his answers may be what you expected. Others may surprise you, like his embrace of natural gas as a fuel and his reservations about regulating emissions. Climate policy Kennedy hadn’t previously said much policy approach to climate change during the campaign. The interview filled in some of the picture, although other points remain ... Read more ... |
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Five Myths and Half-Truths About California Cap and Trade - Legal Planet  (Apr 16) |
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Apr 16 · A key part of California’s climate policy has always been its cap and trade system. Because the regulations aren’t very transparent, there have been a lot of misconceptions about the system. I’ve been digging into the rules, the explanatory website set up by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and secondary sources to try to figure some of these things out. Despite complexities, the basic idea behind the trading system is simple. The state sets an annual cap on emissions, distributes allowances (permits to emit a ton of carbon), and then allows the recipients to trade those allowances amongst themselves. The idea is to allow the private market to figure out the cheapest ... Read more ... |
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California Wins Major Clean Air Act/Climate Change Case in D.C. Circuit - Legal Planet  (Apr 12) |
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Apr 12 · This week California and the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency won a critically-important environmental lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The case involves a constitutional challenge brought by a coalition of conservative (“red”) states to E.P.A.’s delegation of federal Clean Air Act (CAA) authority for California to adopt regulations limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles and mandating the state’s steady transition from sales of conventional cars and light trucks to electric vehicles. The D.C. Circuit’s long-awaited decision is State of Ohio v. Environmental ... Read more ... |
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Shanahan, Kennedy and Climate Change: Unanswered Questions - Legal Planet  (Apr 11) |
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Apr 11 · In a flare-up between former allies last week, Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat, asked Nicole Shanahan to think twice about continuing as RFK Jr.’s running mate. His argument was that the campaign could ultimately send Donald Trump back to the White House, risking the destruction of U.S. climate efforts. The resulting public exchange is revealing about what motivates independent candidates like Shanahan. It also points to a conundrum for the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket: how to address concerns about the climate implications of another Trump Administration. Khanna’s point was simple: Shanahan cares about climate change, but the RFK candidacy might help elect Trump, who ... Read more ... |
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Power of the People: Environmental Advocacy in China - Legal Planet  (Apr 10) |
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Apr 10 · China’s global rise has raised concerns about impacts on the environment in a bewilderingly wide range of issues. These include global climate change, deforestation, impacts on rare and endangered species, harm to fisheries, environmental impacts of overseas infrastructure, mining, and energy sector investments, to name just a few. Popular attention has often focused on Chinese government action (or lack thereof) and the behavior of Chinese companies “going out” into the world. What role are Chinese civil society organizations playing these days? Chinese environmental groups had somewhat of a renaissance in the early 2000s, with groups such as Friends of Nature, Global Village ... Read more ... |
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Not All Community Benefits Are Created Equal - Legal Planet  (Apr 9) |
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Apr 9 · CLEE has just released a new report, Offshore Wind & Community Benefits Agreements in California: CBA Examples, detailing the CBA and other community provisions in California’s offshore wind leases, as well as examples of CBA precursors and models from other industries. Read it here. As California offshore wind moves forward, there are opportunities for underserved, environmental justice, and tribal communities to secure benefits and community investment (if communities are interested in negotiating with developers). This is because California’s current offshore wind leases contain different types of community-beneficial measures, including Community Benefits Agreements, or ... Read more ... |
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Climate Change and Nigeria - Legal Planet  (Apr 8) |
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Apr 8 · By the time my youngest granddaughter is thirty, Nigeria will be the world’s third-largest country. It’s also one of the countries that’s least prepared to adapt to climate change, which will be much worse by then. Nigeria’s population is expected to roughly double by 2050, to around 400 million. The population was previously expected to double again by 2100, but the current estimate is that it will reach “only” about 550 million. In the meantime, China’s population is expected to fall; as a result, Nigeria’s population will be about three-fourths that of China. The Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative rankings show that Nigeria as the 17th most vulnerable ... Read more ... |
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A Total Eclipse of the Heat - Legal Planet  (Apr 7) |
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Apr 7 · Millions of Americans traveled this week to the path of totality to hunker down with loved ones and total strangers to gaze upwards at one of the most amazing astronomical events of our lives and share something like a transcendent, spiritual experience. I hope we can collectively reckon with another terrifyingly awesome atmospheric event: the hottest year. Multiple relentless heat waves occurred in 2023, with much of the globe experiencing 20 more “heatwave days” than in the previous three decades. The annual-average temperature was 1.48 C above the pre-industrial average, just shy of the 1.5 target set by the Paris Agreement – and an astonishing 0.17 C hotter than the ... Read more ... |
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No, EVs are Not Worse for the Planet - Legal Planet  (Apr 5) |
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Apr 5 · If you have somehow managed to escape the frenzied political headlines about electric vehicles, first I envy you and second, I must regrettably inform you that the EV has become an acronym of partisan rancor on par with IVF, DEI, and CRT. There’s a lot of reasons for this electric car culture war: President Biden has made EVs central to his climate and economic policies. They intersect with labor politics and growing tensions with China. And cars remain a symbol of American freedom, so the idea of regulating them is an easy boogeyman for Republicans who want to exploit the rural-urban divide. It’s tempting for climate policy people to just ignore the car culture war, ... Read more ... |
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Ranking the Candidates’ Focus on Energy & Climate - Legal Planet  (Apr 4) |
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Apr 4 · I thought it would be helpful to provide some kind of objective measure of how much various candidates focus on energy and climate. I based this on how extensively they discuss these issues on their websites. By this ranking, Biden came in first - surprisingly, ahead of progressives Jill Stein and Cornel West. Also surprisingly, RFK Jr. and Jill Stein came in last in terms of focus on climate change. In fairness, Stein endorsed the general idea of a Green New Deal but provided little explanation. Kennedy’s environmental tab is fairly long, but says little about climate change. Still, neither one presented any sort of climate plan. My measure is simple if maybe a little ... Read more ... |
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The 'Year of Climate’ in International Courts - Legal Planet  (Apr 2) |
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Apr 2 · “The Year of Climate in International Courts” by guest contributor Rebecca Hamilton was originally published on Just Security This year promises to be the 'Year of Climate’ in international courts and tribunals with opinions slated to be coming down from the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the International Court of Justice. The European Court of Human Rights will decide on three contentious cases brought by individual applicants, and the other three courts will issue advisory opinions at the request of different States. But all cases overlap to some degree on the question of ... Read more ... |
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Ripped from the Headlines - Legal Planet  (Apr 1) |
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Apr 1 · Here’s a selection of recent headlines, which I only wish I had made up for April Fool’s Day. “Earth just had its hottest year ever recorded - by far.” - NBC “Hurricanes are getting so intense, scientists propose a Category 6” - Washington Post “Parts of Amazon rainforest could tip toward collapse by 2050, study warns.” – Washington Post “Critical Atlantic Ocean current system is showing early signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists.” –- CNN “Scientists discover an alarming change in Antarctica’s past that could spell devastating future sea level rise.” - CNN Those headlines look like they’re taken from a dystopian science ... Read more ... |
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A Word on Congestion Pricing - Legal Planet  (Mar 28) |
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Mar 28 · Yesterday, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved the city’s long-planned and hotly debated congestion pricing program, the first of its kind in the US. The program will involve a $15 toll for vehicles entering midtown or lower Manhattan, with discounts for some qualifying drivers and credits for bridge and tunnel tolls so drivers aren’t double-charged. It is expected to raise about $1 billion annually for transit and transportation investments. The plan is already being challenged in court by the expected mix of outer-borough and neighboring state representatives who call the plan an unfair tax on commuters and right-wing groups that oppose regulation and ... Read more ... |
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Election 2024: The Current Outlook - Legal Planet  (Mar 28) |
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Mar 28 · Last November, it appeared that the Democrats had a small edge in terms of electoral votes. In congressional races, however, the Republicans had the edge in the Senate and perhaps the House. Since then, the electoral vote situation has become foggier, gerrymandering in North Carolina has given the Republicans a bit more of an advantage in the House, and the Senate has become an even tougher battle for the Democrats. As I said in November, not being a political expert, I’m relying on two respected political website, Sabato and Cook . Here are the reasons for the shifts since then: There are still a lot of unknowns in terms of the presidency and the House. The improving ... Read more ... |
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Florida is a Climate-Denying Hellscape - Legal Planet  (Mar 27) |
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Mar 27 · Take the latest, science-backed climate policies that are gaining traction in state houses around the country - and then do the exact opposite. That seems to be the Florida playbook for dealing with the climate crisis facing Floridians in the form of rising sea levels and deadly temperatures. This legislative session, state lawmakers in the Sunshine State focused on erasing climate change from their laws, killing offshore wind, and banning local heat protection ordinances that are meant to keep people safe in the hottest state in the nation. Last year, residents of Miami suffered through 46 straight days of the heat index topping 100 degrees while coastal waters rose to ... Read more ... |
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New Bill Takes Up Local Oil Drilling Phase-Outs - Legal Planet  (Mar 25) |
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Mar 25 · When the California Supreme Court ruled last August that Monterey County could not enforce its voter-approved ban on new oil and gas wells, lawyers for Chevron said the company was “pleased” to end the 7 years of litigation. Monterey County is home to the eighth-largest oil field in California, so there was plenty at stake on the face of the case. But this legal battle was about much more than the San Ardo Oil Field; it was the latest in a line of coordinated legal efforts to sow confusion and doubt about the scope of local power to limit oil and gas drilling in cities and counties throughout California. Hopefully, Assembly Bill (AB) 3233––a new bill introduced last Friday by ... Read more ... |
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Critical Insights on the Mineral Boom: Part III - Legal Planet  (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · The topic of critical minerals and the energy transition is one of choices and priorities, at least according to author and journalist Ernest Scheyder, who spoke at the second panel in our recent “Powering the Future” symposium. This panel, Critical Minerals and Global Supply Chains, discussed some of the fundamental choices that governments, industry, and individuals have made and will make in the coming years to facilitate the energy transition. It also spoke to how we can––and must––navigate an uncertain future as we move from an extractive economy built on fossil fuels to a still-extractive economy built on lithium and other critical minerals. It’s an issue that implicates ... Read more ... |
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How Can Cities Deliver Equitable EV Charging to the Curbside and Public Right of Way? - Legal Planet  (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · As California and other states transition to one hundred percent zero-emission new vehicle (ZEV) sales by 2035, local governments will play a crucial role in addressing inequities in the ZEV transition. Limited access to abundant and reliable charging equipment remains a key barrier to ZEV adoption for all, and city governments can lead efforts to broaden charger availability. Specifically, cities can help coordinate stakeholders, streamline permitting processes, and elevate innovative charging models that orient electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure toward equity-centered practices. Curbside and public right-of-way (PROW) locations are a key venue for city governments to lead ... Read more ... |
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The New EPA Car Rule Doesn’t Violate the Major Questions Doctrine - Legal Planet  (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court struck down the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The heart of the ruling was that EPA had engaged in a power grab, basing an unprecedented expansion of its regulatory authority on an obscure provision of the statute. Conservative groups have claimed since then that virtually every government regulation raises a major question. But the doctrine cannot be read that broadly. In particular, the doctrine does not apply to the emission standards for cars that EPA issued yesterday. As EPA explains in its prologue to the rule, the car standard is very different from the Clean Power Plan. In striking down the Clean Power Plan, the Supreme ... Read more ... |
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The Changing Politics of Coal - Legal Planet  (Mar 19) |
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Mar 19 · The “War Against Coal” was a major conservative theme eight years ago. Now it seems almost forgotten even by Donald Trump, who was once coal’s caped crusader. But although protecting coal production is no longer much of a national issue, keeping coal-fired power plants open has percolated as an issue at the state level. It remains to be seen how long increasingly uneconomic coal generators remain online. In 2016, Trump was all in for coal. Donning a miner’s helmet in a swing through West Virginia, he pretended to shovel coal while the crowd chanted, “Trump Digs Coal.” By 2020, however, a United Mine Workers union spokesman said he couldn’t remember the last time Trump had said ... Read more ... |
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Critical Insights on the Mineral Boom - Legal Planet  (Mar 18) |
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Mar 18 · A couple hundred miles north of the Las Vegas strip at Rhyolite Ridge you’ll find a dusty yellow wildflower called Tiehm’s buckwheat that grows nowhere else in the world. But this flower sits atop a massive, untapped lithium reserve that would help the U.S. transition to cleaner energy. Now, what if you had to choose between approving this much-needed mining operation and preserving this unique flower? In a way, you do have to choose. We all do. We’re in a race for lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, and other critical minerals needed to move away from fossil fuels. Elected officials, policymakers, and courts are at this moment struggling to strike the right balance between that ... Read more ... |
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Replacing McConnell - Legal Planet  (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · Who will lead the Senate in 2025? The odds are that it will be a Republican. Democrats have a slim margin and face some close races, while all the GOP seats seem secure. That makes the question of who will replace Mitch McConell as GOP leader all the more important for climate and energy policy. Here are two top possibilities. Neither of them is by any stretch of the imagination an environmentalist. Yet you have to say one thing in their favor: neither is half as anti-environmentalist as their national party leader, Donald Trump. John Cornyn (TX). LCV score of 7%, just below Mitch McConnell’s lifetime score of 9% s third of Susan Collins’s score. Cornyn’s Senate ... Read more ... |
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How to Cooperate with China on Climate - Legal Planet  (Mar 13) |
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Mar 13 · China is the world’s largest producer of both CO2 emissions and green technology to cut those emissions. It installed more solar panels last year than the U.S. has in its history, and yet keeps building coal-fired plants too. And Chinese officials just announced that the country will accelerate the construction of solar, wind and hydropower. So, China plays an outsized and even paradoxical role in deploying clean energy technologies to address the climate crisis. To predict what the future might hold, it helps to consult history. Joanna Lewis’ recent book, “Cooperating for the Climate” does that by examining the motivations, science, and politics behind international clean ... Read more ... |
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States May Be Warming to Green Amendments - Legal Planet  (Mar 12) |
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Mar 12 · Last week, New Jersey lawmakers and a variety of stakeholders crammed into a statehouse committee room for a relatively rare legislative hearing. This 2-hour hearing centered on New Jersey’s proposed green amendment, which committee chair Senator Bob Smith described as “a very controversial topic” as he gaveled in the meeting. This green amendment would add a constitutional guarantee to a healthy, clean environment. Advocates have been pushing for such a hearing for years. Dozens of supporters spoke up for the legislation while a handful of corporate lobbyists and executives read statements against the bill. In 2024, these kinds of hearings may take place more and more in ... Read more ... |
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Fifteen Years of Legal Planet - Legal Planet  (Mar 11) |
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Mar 11 · A decade and a half ago, the law school here announced the launch of a new environmental law blog by Berkeley and UCLA. The March 11, 2009 press release began: “The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Berkeley Law) and UCLA School of Law today announced the launch of a new blog, Legal Planet, which provides insight and analysis on climate change, energy, and environmental law and policy. This collaborative blog draws upon the individual research strengths and vast expertise of the law schools’ think tanks and legal scholars.” I should probably note while March 2009 was the official launch announcement for Legal Planet, we did some trial blog posts ... Read more ... |
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The global conversation about solar geoengineering just changed at the UN Environment Assembly. Here’s how. - Legal Planet  (Mar 8) |
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Mar 8 · As we wrote in part 1, a Swiss-led proposal to the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) to establish an expert group on solar radiation management (SRM) proved divisive and was eventually withdrawn. Here we explore why, and what that means for any global conversation about SRM. SRM has long generated concerns that, as a powerful lever on the Earth system, it could have unwanted side-effects and generate political and ethical risks, as well as lowering temperatures. But rules and norms about such technologies are patchy, and recent unauthorized experiments have set alarm bells ringing. With good will on all sides, a UNEA resolution might have been a step towards a genuinely ... Read more ... |
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Countries failed to agree first steps on solar geoengineering at the UN. What went wrong? - Legal Planet  (Mar 7) |
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Mar 7 · In the last weeks, diplomats from all over the world were negotiating more than twenty draft resolutions at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). The Assembly is a biennial intergovernmental meeting which sets the global environmental agenda. It also sets the strategy for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and outlines policy responses to address emerging environmental challenges. In amongst proposals regarding plastic pollution, air quality, pesticides and circular economies, to mention but a few, the most controversial was a Swiss-led proposal to establish an expert group on solar radiation modification (SRM). Back in 2019, at the last face-to-face Assembly, the Swiss ... Read more ... |
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The SEC’s Watered-Down Climate Rule - Legal Planet  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · After months of discussion, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted 3-2 to adopt climate reporting standards that will mandate publicly-traded companies disclose some of their greenhouse gas emissions. The SEC’s rule was proposed way back in 2022, and the initial draft would have required companies to disclose their “Scope 3” supply chain emissions, in addition to the “Scope 1” and “Scope 2” direct and indirect emissions the final rule includes. Those Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions need only be reported to the extent they are “material,” further limiting which corporate emissions are subject to disclosure requirements. The rule’s adoption comes months after ... Read more ... |
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