Legal Planet

JULY 1, 2021

For the last century, the Supreme Court has tried to operationalize the idea that a government regulation can be so burdensome that it amounts to a seizure of property. The Supreme Court held that, because the government was authorizing an intrusion onto farmland, this was a taking of property that the government would have to pay for.

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Legal Planet

MAY 19, 2023

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.

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

The argument is that the Board shouldn’t have to consider that because EPA has authority to regulate air pollution, not the Board. Section 102(2)(C) requires the agency preparing an impact statement to obtain comments from any other agency that “has jurisdiction by law… with respect to any environmental impact involved.”

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Legal Planet

MARCH 13, 2025

But the federal government in the United States has failed to address it so far. Opponents will undoubtedly argue that such state-based initiatives conflict with federal law. Aviation is a significant and growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 13, 2025

Yet in one of his first official acts as Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), Sean Duffy delineated a set of principles governing DOT funding (to the extent there is any legal discretion). The Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway is the first modern highway built by the federal government. And that might not be a problem.

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Law Columbia

MARCH 27, 2025

City of New York , plumbing and building trade groups challenged New York Citys Local Law 154 of 2021 , a piece of legislation that prohibits fossil fuel combustion in most new buildings. This blog post discusses Local Law 154, unpacks Judge Abrams decision, and ends with a refresher on California Restaurant Association v.

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Legal Planet

MAY 9, 2022

As a compromise, California law (AB 398) has limited offsets to 4% of compliance obligations for the 2021-2025 period and capped the offsets without in-state benefits that can be utilized for compliance. . California has perhaps the most comprehensive protocols on offsets in the world, but this has not quieted concerns.

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Circle of Blue

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Groundwater regulation, legal rights to clean water, and spending measures highlight this election cycle. Voters in parts of Cochise and Graham counties will decide whether to join the state’s more populated districts and regulate groundwater extraction. Local Regulation. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Included in the regulation are requirements for mineral sourcing, life cycle emissions, information sharing, and recycling. These regulations set a precedent for battery policy; an area where the US needs to do more. Why does the EU need new battery regulations?

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Law Columbia

JANUARY 31, 2025

The Sabin Center has previously discussed the regulation of OAE here and here. A new Sabin Center report continues the conversation by focusing on the regulation of OAE in Washington State. OAE projects conducted in near-shore areas off the Washington coast may be subject to regulation at the federal, state, tribal and local levels.

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Someone asked me recently what I thought law schools should be teaching about climate change. There are many important societal issues that don’t get high priority in law school, such as the availability of health care or public health law. Law student interests aren’t entirely driven by career needs, however.

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

In addition, the impact statement was governed by the 1970 version of NEPA and the 1978 White House NEPA regulations. It was a surprise that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The facts are quite unusual. Neither of those is in effect today. Thus, the relevance of any ruling to future agency actions is unclear.

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Legal Planet

JANUARY 2, 2023

The prospect of climate interventions, particularly SAI, might offer large reductions in climate-change risks that are not possible through emissions cuts, adaptations, or atmospheric removals alone, but also raise serious new uncertainties, risks, and governance challenges. This may be on the cusp of changing, but it hasn’t yet.).

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Legal Planet

JUNE 26, 2023

One of the most important provisions, of the new NEPA law, § 107(f), allows the lead agency to delegate preparation of environmental reviews to project applicants. State government units. CEQ might best deal with these issues through by importing some of the requirements of subsection (G) into regulations implementing section 107(f).

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National Law Center

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

In 2023, lawsuits were filed against state governments in Indiana, Arkansas, Virginia, and Alaska alleging that state hemp laws and regulations. The post Legal Challenges to State Hemp Laws and Regulations appeared first on National Agricultural Law Center.

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Legal Planet

OCTOBER 21, 2024

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.

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Legal Planet

JUNE 24, 2024

Streamgaging Network (credit: USGS.gov) Recently I’ve posted stories about efforts to enforce California’s water laws in the face of efforts by some diverters to evade and ignore limits on their ability to privatize public water resources–especially in times of critical drought.

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Legal Planet

JANUARY 19, 2023

When it struck down Obama’s signature climate regulation in West Virginia v. He added that agencies have only the powers given them by Congress, and the laws empowering agencies are not an “open book to which the agency may add pages and change the plot line.” None of that breathless rhetoric appears in the majority opinion.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 29, 2024

Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would regulate two forms of PFAS contamination under Superfund laws reserved for “the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites.” The same suppression and disinformation kept government regulators at bay for decades.

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Law Columbia

FEBRUARY 18, 2025

The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, together with New York Sea Grant, is pleased to announce a writing competition for law students interested in writing on legal and policy issues associated with marine carbon dioxide removal. Articles should be 15,000 words in length.

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Law Columbia

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

City of New York , a 2022 lawsuit brought by a group of cooperative apartment and other building owners seeking to invalidate Local Law 97 of 2019 , New York City’s building performance standard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the City’s largest buildings. But it also offers a broader primer to local governments elsewhere.

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Law Columbia

JUNE 21, 2024

Glen Oaks – a 2022 lawsuit brought by a group of cooperative apartment owners – sought to invalidate Local Law 97 of 2019 , New York City’s building performance standard aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the City’s largest buildings.

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Legal Planet

SEPTEMBER 3, 2024

It also wants to destroy environmental regulation, especially climate law. There’s no logical connection between a belief in authoritarian government, upholding traditional hierarchies, and views about protecting the environment or the reality of climate change. That’s not a coincidence. Other factors may also be relevant.

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

Our system of environmental regulation divides up regulation of a single substance based on each of its environmental impacts. When the a law is focused on one impact of coal, attempts to take into account other harms can get mired in controversies about considering “co-benefits” and direct versus indirect or cumulative impacts.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

It galvanized the environmental movement and it pushed the federal government and Congress to carry out scientific research on pesticide contamination and to act on that research. Carson also explicitly called out the hypocrisy inherent in government agencies at the time. And yes, they really were that hyperbolic.

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Circle of Blue

MAY 4, 2022

Michigan’s Lack of Septic System Regulations is Causing Problems for Some of its Most Pristine Lakes Failing systems can allow contaminated water to seep through the earth into nearby bodies of water. The township does have a law requiring a septic system inspection when a house sells. water systems are aging. Find all the work here.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Taken together, the need for governments to meaningfully regulate these super polluters has never been clearer. This guidance has been solicited from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Interamerican Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and International Court of Justice (ICJ).

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Legal Planet

DECEMBER 29, 2022

Credit: ABA for Law Students. For the first 130 years of the American nation’s history, the Takings Clause was widely understood to apply only to government’s physical seizure of private property. One hundred years ago this month, the U.S. In the December 1922 decision Pennsylvania Coal Company v.

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Legal Planet

OCTOBER 15, 2022

These blog posts summarize our recent article in Ecology Law Quarterly , coauthored with my collaborator Moira O’Neill. In this blog post, we’ll summarize the relevant law. CEQA generally requires disclosure and feasible mitigation of significant environmental impacts from government-approved development projects in the state.

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Legal Planet

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

The California Legislature recently enacted, and Governor Gavin Newsom last week signed into law, two major housing reform measures. SB 9 and SB 10 represent California’s most transformative new housing laws in decades, and are a belated but welcome legislative response to the state’s longstanding housing crisis.

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Legal Planet

JULY 17, 2023

Three decades earlier, a class project by five law students had led to a major win on standing, though a loss on the merits. No one really thought that Mendelsohn could win when he petitioned EPA to regulate greenhouse gases from new cars and trucks. In the end, however, they came on board, along with several state governments.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 9, 2024

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. When facilities emit less pollution, their regulations require less specific record-keeping and monitoring.

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Clean Energy Law

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

The regulations aim to provide a legal framework for China’s carbon allowance trading market by strengthening requirements and designating responsibilities. The Regulations fill in the regulatory vacuum that has existed since 2021. By Hui Xu , Paul A.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 26, 2021

The same is true in environmental law. Was it a fundamental paradigm shift, re-centering the law on new values? With all this in mind, here are the cases that I see as making up the canon and anti-canons of environmental law. The issue goes beyond which side wins. This was a case under the Endangered Species Act.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 8, 2024

The principle states that, when the language of a law is ambiguous, experts at federal agencies can interpret it to create rules to implement and enforce the law. In SEC v Jarkesy, a 6-3 majority undermined federal agencies’ ability to enforce laws by issuing fines to individuals or organizations that break those laws.

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Legal Planet

MARCH 16, 2023

A special focus of the Commission’s deliberations will be whether and to what extent California’s most important and overarching environmental law is impeding efforts by the Legislature and Governor Newsom to address the state’s chronic and well-documented housing crisis.

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Law and Environment

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Yesterday, Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer issued a report detailing how “to implement the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s whole-of-government approach to addressing the climate crisis.” The post New Report Details Massachusetts Whole-of-Government Approach to Climate Crisis first appeared on Law and the Environment.

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