Legal Planet

Important Progress Toward a Climate-Ready Grid

New transmission is crucial. This is how FERC is starting to address the problem.

We urgently need more transmission to accommodate renewable energy, increased energy demand, and grid resilience to climate disasters. Yet the transmission approval process has been badly broken, often favoring small projects that plump up utility profits but do little to address longterm or regional transmission needs. Last week, the government took steps to improve permitting for new transmission lines. These moves have been urgently needed. (Regrettably, someone el...

Florida Governor DeSantis’ Head-In-The-Sand Climate Change Policies

New Florida Law Strikes Term "Climate Change" From State Laws, Promotes Fossil Fuels & Rejects Renewable Energy Projects

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in coordination with an equally myopic and partisan Florida Legislature, has approved new state legislation (HB 1645) that eliminates the term "climate change" from numerous existing Florida statutes that former Republican Governor Charlie Crist signed into law in 2008. The legislation, which takes effect on July 1st, is not just symbolic: it also prohibits construction of wind turbines in Florida's offshore waters and repeals state ...

The Supreme Court’s Top-10 Environmental Law Decisions

If these decisions had come out differently, environmental law would look very different than it does today.

What are the most important Supreme Court decisions in environmental law? My "top 10" list is made up of cases that have done the most to shape the field as a while or the implementation of a major environmental statute. Putting together this list highlighted a decades-long duel between two Justices, Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens. Often, Scalia voted against the environmental side and Stevens voted for it. Between them, the two Justices account for seven ...

Ninth Circuit Short-Circuits Juliana v. U.S. Climate Change Lawsuit

Iconic Children Plaintiffs Lack Legal Standing to Pursue Case, Court of Appeals Rules

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 lawsuits in recent American legal history: Juliana v. United States. The background of this litigation--which was filed in federal district court in Oregon in 2015--has been analyzed at length in past Legal Planet posts authored by me and several of my Legal Planet colleagues. (Mine can be found here, here and here.)...

30 Major Climate Initiatives Under Biden

By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here's a timeline of the Top 30 actions.

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...

Pouring Gas on a Five Alarm Fire

That’s Trump’s climate policy in a nutshell. His campaign slogan should be, "Burn, Baby, Burn."

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...

Can GoGreen Advance California’s Home Decarbonization Goals?

The state’s home energy financing program remains modest and needs to scale

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 h...

Mobilizing Environmental Voters

People who care about the environment may not be voters. Can that be changed?

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 ...

Little Hoover Commission Releases Flawed CEQA Report

The long-awaited report proposes sweeping exemptions and process changes—even though its own reasoning points in the opposite direction.

More than a year ago, California’s Little Hoover Commission convened the first in a series of public hearings designed to interrogate the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as well as Californians’ often tense relationship with that landmark legislation. In recent years, some pro-housing advocates have pointed to CEQA as the bogeyman driving the state’s affordable housing crisis; defenders of the law say CEQA stymies relatively few developments that would ...

California Seeks to Protect Homes from Excessive Indoor Heat

Guest contributor Cassandra Vo writes that the state should do more to protect mobile homes dwellers from heat. Work by a UCLA Law Clinic on behalf of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability points the way forward on inclusive heat resiliency standards.

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...

New transmission is crucial. This is how FERC is starting to address the problem.

New Florida Law Strikes Term "Climate Change" From State Laws, Promotes Fossil Fuels & Rejects Renewable Energy Projects

If these decisions had come out differently, environmental law would look very different than it does today.

Iconic Children Plaintiffs Lack Legal Standing to Pursue Case, Court of Appeals Rules

By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here's a timeline of the Top 30 actions.

That’s Trump’s climate policy in a nutshell. His campaign slogan should be, "Burn, Baby, Burn."

The state’s home energy financing program remains modest and needs to scale

People who care about the environment may not be voters. Can that be changed?

The long-awaited report proposes sweeping exemptions and process changes—even though its own reasoning points in the opposite direction.

Guest contributor Cassandra Vo writes that the state should do more to protect mobile homes dwellers from heat. Work by a UCLA Law Clinic on behalf of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability points the way forward on inclusive heat resiliency standards.

TRENDING

New transmission is crucial. This is how FERC is starting to address the problem.

New Florida Law Strikes Term “Climate Change” From State Laws, Promotes Fossil Fuels & Rejects Renewable Energy Projects

If these decisions had come out differently, environmental law would look very different than it does today.

Iconic Children Plaintiffs Lack Legal Standing to Pursue Case, Court of Appeals Rules

By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here’s a timeline of the Top 30 actions.

That’s Trump’s climate policy in a nutshell. His campaign slogan should be, “Burn, Baby, Burn.”

The state’s home energy financing program remains modest and needs to scale

People who care about the environment may not be voters. Can that be changed?

The long-awaited report proposes sweeping exemptions and process changes—even though its own reasoning points in the opposite direction.

Guest contributor Cassandra Vo writes that the state should do more to protect mobile homes dwellers from heat. Work by a UCLA Law Clinic on behalf of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability points the way forward on inclusive heat resiliency standards.

Probably not. But also possibly yes.

“We have a long way to go, but we’ve started down the path.” I asked my UCLA Emmett Institute colleagues what climate actions give them hope on Earth Day. Here’s how they answered.

A state bill to cap the fixed charges utilities can collect in California would shut down an important debate about equity and rate design. Here’s a better way forward.

EPA’s approach isn’t a novel innovation. It’s just EPA applying its usual approach.

The barriers are still huge — but we can also envision a path to success.

Decisions about judicial deference to agencies on legal issues didn’t begin or end with Chevron.

Guest contributor Cassandra Vo writes that the state should do more to protect mobile homes dwellers from heat. Work by a UCLA Law Clinic on behalf of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability points the way forward on inclusive heat resiliency standards.

The long-awaited report proposes sweeping exemptions and process changes—even though its own reasoning points in the opposite direction.

That’s Trump’s climate policy in a nutshell. His campaign slogan should be, “Burn, Baby, Burn.”

By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here’s a timeline of the Top 30 actions.