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(Klamath River Dam removal project [credit: Los Angeles Times]) Most of the environmental law and policy matters discussed on Legal Planet–especially over the past few months–have dealt with natural resource crises, environmental rollbacks, hostile political actors and actions in Washington, D.C., Davis law school).
The California Legislature has enacted and Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed into law SB 389 , an important water law reform measure authored by State Senator Ben Allen. SB 389 is part of a broader initiative by the Legislature–and public interest groups–to reform and update California’s water laws.
A wet winter in 2023 temporarily pulled the basin out of its tailspin, while up to $4 billion in federal funding for water conservation eased the path to using less. The basins politics today are perhaps even more fraught. Luck and money intervened to relieve the pressure.
Monterey County Oil Field (credit: Monterey County Weekly) For the first two decades of this century, and under the able leadership of former Chief Justices Ronald George and Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the California Supreme Court was quite active in interpreting and shaping California environmental law. Well, break’s over.
Remedies for Harmful Algal Blooms Are Available in Law and Practice — Circle of Blue. POLLUTION CLEANUP: Michigan’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the California-based company FKI Hardware for violating the state’s pollution cleanup laws, MLive reports. Fresh from the Great Lakes News Collaborative. In the News.
It also wants to destroy environmental regulation, especially climate law. The combination of authoritarianism, extreme conservative ideology, and anti-environmentalism is common globally, not just in U.S. Thus, the reasons must relate to psychology or political science, not philosophy. That’s not a coincidence.
UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & Environment (CLEE) is sponsoring a series of papers evaluating aspects of Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation publication, entitled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” which has received attention in the Presidential election campaign.
Because In Politics Everything Is Connected To Everything Else-- -- Gov. Shapiro, State Legislature Must Act As Bulwark Against New Republican Environmental Rollbacks - By Molly Parzen, Conservation Voters Of PA -- Post-Gazette/AP: 3.5% Ohio- $3.03 Ohio- $3.03
Through such an aggressive move, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority may be preparing a siege tower from which it will further dismantle the Voting Rights Act, and the scientific basis used to identify and remedy racial gerrymandering. Why would the conservative SCOTUS majority create such a precedent now?
This law is a clear setback for open and accountable energy planning and will mean Ontarians are left in the dark about how critical decisions regarding our energy system are made. The government’s choice to enshrine in law a prioritization of nuclear power is also troubling.
In the past two years, however, the things have started trending upward after years of inaction by conservative governments. As in the US, Australia’s climate policy was long a victim of a lengthy period of divided government and political upheaval. This March, Australia adopted a follow-up law to implement these targets.
Kober This profile was first published on the PA Conservation Heritage website-- Paul O. In the late 1970s, he worked as a partner in a small business (Conservation Concepts, Inc.) Career In Conservation Begins Pauls conservation career included working at the local, state and regional levels. By Wayne W. Hershey Jr./Sr.
We seem to be dealing with opinions rather than statements that are provably false, so libel law shouldn’t apply in the first place. In fact, one of the useful things I teach is libel law. The industry’s lawyers might have avoided filing such a defective case if they had only taken my class as beginning law students.
In a string of really problematic decisions, the US Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative majority has ensured that the hard job of regulatory agencies in protecting the public interest will get even harder, if not impossible in many instances. As far as I can see, Congress can barely agree to fund the government and pay already incurred bills!
Second, there are political and legal problems with equity weighting. The political problem is that equity weighting is progressive and therefore is likely to get a hostile reaction from conservatives (including conservative judges).
This year marks my 50 th year practicing environmental law. In NYC, I met my wife, Katy, a graduate student at Columbia, and we jointly decided to apply to law schools in NYC, DC, and Boston. UT Law was (and is) an exceptional law school; remarkably, tuition back then was even less than the cost of our textbooks.
The Liberal Party — conservative in everything but name — lost control of the federal government to Labor. Climate change wasn’t a central issue in the campaign, but resistance to climate action no longer provided a political advantage. Australia has had a change of government. Labor soft-pedaled its position to avoid losing votes.
A just land transition defines Meaningful Benefits for communities Californias Department of Conservation (DOC) has a head start in this area. In April, DOC adopted revised guidelines for its Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program (MLRP), which included a robust definition of meaningful benefits.
Whether you call it updating, modernizing, or reforming, changes to the water rights system have long been considered a political third rail —the electric kind you don’t touch. This year, one of those water rights bills, Senate Bill 389 (SB 389) made it through the gauntlet of the legislature and will become law if Governor Newsom signs it.
Because In Politics Everything Is Connected To Everything Else-- -- Gov. Shapiro -- PennLive - Jan Murphy: Gov. Will It Pay Off? -- The Center Square: OH. Will It Pay Off?
They are allowed by law and timid regulatory inertia to annually spread 400 millions of tons of solid manure, and 4 billion gallons of raw, untreated liquid animal feces and urine – 5,000 to 7,000 gallons per acre – on 600,000 acres across Michigan; . “If There’s no excuse for these blooms to be happening in Michigan.”. The USDA spends $8.2
In more recent years, there has been a quiet but concerted grassroots campaign led by Nebraska Conservation Voters to elect more climate-friendly board members. There may be hope that the politics of climate change is beginning to detoxify. That has changed quite quickly. During the 2010s, wind power went from 1% of generation to 20%.
In 2014, the California legislature passed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) , and for the first time, groundwater basins in the state would need to start cutting back on over-drafting our shared groundwater resource. This is definitely the case in the Cuyama Valley.
Water is poised for prominence this year in state law and policy. Laura Kelly of Kansas explaining the need to conserve water from the shrinking Ogallala aquifer that nourishes the state’s agriculture industry. Favorable political alignments could help many states convert water worries into action.
4) Drought Is Political. The right to use water in the western states is subject to arcane laws, court decrees, and precedents, some of which date to the era of colonial settlement. A relatively recent development is the political muscle of the region’s Indian tribes. Their plan is due next month.
Because In Politics Everything Is Connected To Everything Else-- -- Gov. Capitol -- Federal Budget -- AP: Hard-Right Conservatives Oppose Federal Debt Limit Compromise Led By PA Republican Cong. Perry; May Try To Oust Republican Speaker McCarthy -- Politics PA: Republican PA Cong.
As my colleague Elliot Negin points out , “One of the anti-ESG Republicans’ main targets, BlackRock has nearly $260 billion invested in fossil fuel companies around the world, including $91 billion in Texas, the first state to enact an anti-fossil fuel industry divestment law.”
They worry that scrapping the project after it was approved by state and federal regulators would set a bad precedent for the state and subject future permitting decisions to partisan politics. The DEP also ordered Central Maine Power to conserve 40,000 acres in western Maine and spend nearly $1.9
In her opinion, Judge Brownlee referenced the omnibus bill, writing that the Florida Legislature holds the power to set environmental policy and preempt county and local laws. 4) Drought Is Political. And across the American West, Indian tribes are increasingly involved in the political landscape of water.
If governments bypass or undermine science and public comments in policy making, our health could be in jeopardy from increased pollution, cases of foodborne illnesses, politically-driven medicine approvals or disapprovals, and more. This is a major federal law that governs if a chemical will be regulated, limited, or even banned.
Now the Terner Center has a report on discussions with developers revealing that we still have quite a long way to go to make the law work as intended. The Conservative Legal Movement then developed a network of all-white private schools , and thanks to the Supreme Court , they are now using public money for them.
Here’s an embarrassing confession: Though I had taught environmental law for 25 years at that point, I had never heard of section 111(d) until it was discussed as possible tool to limit carbon emissions. That’s fair game in politics, but we should expect better of judges. The Court called that provision obscure.
In basic terms, the narrative is a counterproposal: cities have enough water as long as they conserve, reuse, stamp out leaks, and align their policies and cultures to the environmental contours of the drylands. Years ago, metro areas approached the conservation challenge with financial inducements. Housing policy is climate policy.”
Scientific expertise without local, political, or legal knowledge is not enough to take on powerful organizations. As the conservation director of Virginia-based advocacy group Wild Virginia , David Sligh was positioned to facilitate connections in the networks that strengthen the advocacy apparatus.
February 27-- House Appropriations Committee Budget Hearing: 10:00- Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. House Floor. House Floor.
And while state laws across the region regulate how, when and why water rights are sold, some worry it won’t be enough to hold back the tide. “I Because if water law is anything, it’s complex. According to water laws across western states, water can’t be owned, although the right to use that water can be sold, bought and transferred.
February 27-- House Appropriations Committee Budget Hearing: 10:00- Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. Snowden at dsnowden@pa.gov or (717) 783-8846. House Floor.
In order to head off this looming disaster it is vital that Ontario’s elected representatives force an immediate u-turn in laws and policies around land use planning, highways and transportation, and watershed planning and flood protection. In particular, Environmental Defence has asked all of the major political parties to commit to: .
In contrast to civil, political, and economic rights, cultural rights have been side-lined and neglected in dialogues about climate policy and human rights. The foundational document of international human rights law is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On May 17, the PA Association of Conservation Districts announced the award of nearly $37,000 in grants to support 21 water pollution prevention projects through the Nonpoint Source Pollution Prevention Educational Mini-Grant Program. “We With this funding, conservation districts will be able to focus on topics important to their county.
If that political gridlock continues, the Department of the Interior may have to impose its own set of water cutbacks upon the states–an action that would likely trigger additional litigation by disaffected states against the federal government and one other.
16 [PaEN] -- DailyLocal.com: Growing Greener Funding Will Improve Local Waters In West Chester Area -- The Progress: Clearfield Conservation District Plans 6 Projects, Cover Crop Incentive Program With Growing Greener Grant Funding -- TribLive: PA Tree Seedling Sale Underway By Game Commission -- Erie News Now: Penn State Extension To Host Feb.
To help voters determine which candidates would deliver the needed course correction, Environmental Defence and its allies in the Ontario Priorities Working Group asked each of the province’s major political parties whether – and how – they would deliver the rapid emissions reductions Ontario will need to head off climate catastrophe. .
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