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Wildfires, CEQA, Climate Change & the Courts
Environmental and conservation groups have for a number of years attempted to convince California courts of the need to integrate climate change considerations into environmental analyses prepared...
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Risky Business
Founded in 1871, the National Association of Insurance Commission represents insurance regulators in all fifty states. It’s not a particularly woke group – the current president is the Director of the...
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War and the Environment: Ukraine in 2022
Memorial Day began as a day to commemorate the Civil War dead, then became a day to commemorate the dead from many wars. But war’s toll goes beyond direct harm to humans. The environment also...
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Loss and Damage
2022 Flooding in Pakistan As I noted in my last post, this year’s conference of the parties to the climate treaties (COP27) became pretty much a single-issue conference, focused on adaptation and the...
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Climate Rides the Omnibus
The omnibus spending bill is by no means a “climate law.” Because it spans the entire government, though, it has many provisions relating to climate change. They aren’t dramatic step forward. But the...
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The Most Important Environmental Story Of The Week
No, it’s not the Biden Administration’s successful push to electrify tens of thousands of USPS vehicles. It’s how Matrix LLC, a consultant in the southeast with significant investments in the energy...
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Deregulation, Normal Accidents, and the Airborne Toxic Event
Source: Wikimedia Commons The East Palestine train derailment is the story that won’t go away. Images of enraged residents shouting at company executives and government officials about the inadequacy...
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LGBTQ People Face Greater Climate Risks
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...
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Temporary Takings and the Adaptation Dilemma
Is it unconstitutional for the government to build a levee that reduces the risk of urban flooding but diverts the water to nearby farmlands? The answer could be yes, unless the government pays for...
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Ninth Circuit Short-Circuits Juliana v. U.S. Climate Change Lawsuit
Juliana v. U.S. Plaintiffs (credit: NationofChange) Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order that likely ends one of the most closely-watched climate change...
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Florida Governor DeSantis’ Head-In-The-Sand Climate Change Policies
(credit: PBI Actuarial Consultants) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in coordination with an equally myopic and partisan Florida Legislature, has approved new state legislation (HB 1645) that eliminates...
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Did the COVID Response Poison the Well for Climate Action?
One meme that seems to be popping up is that the “evils” of the COVID response reveal some dark reality behind climate policy. There’s obviously some kinship: public health responses to COVID and...
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The Hawai’i Youth Climate Trial
Last summer, many Americans were glued to the events unfolding in Maui as a raging inferno overtook the town of Lahaina, trapping thousands and killing at least 99 people. This summer, we’ll see 13...
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“Salt Lakes in Crisis: Legal Responses to Ecological Catastrophes”
The Great Shrinking Salt Lake (credit: NASA Earth Observatory) On Friday, September 20th, the student-run U.C. Davis Law Review will host a most timely conference examining an environmental crisis...
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The Walz-Vance Debate and Environmental Policy
The subject of climate-fueled disasters figured prominently in the vice presidential debate. The CBS News moderators asked a question about climate change within the first few minutes, although the...
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Hurricane Milton and this Climate Moment
When President Biden addressed the nation yesterday from the White House, he warned that Hurricane Milton could be one of the most destructive storms in more than a century, but he stopped short of...
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Governors Present Bold Vision for Investing in a New Forest Economy
The world has continued to watch as fires burn – yet again – across much of the Amazon basin. With historic droughts and ongoing lack of resources to tackle these fires and their underlying causes,...
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