Some Good News To Close Out This Year
Despite the Trump Administration's attempts to bring the world into the dark ages, lots of light is blazing
I’m a pretty pessimistic guy. Finding the dark cloud behind the silver lining is something of a specialty for me. But maybe at the end of an atrocious year for environmental law and policy in the United States, we should look for the good news, and thanks to the good people at Canary Media, there actually is quite a lot. Here are some highlights, but as they say, read the whole thing. Relentless Rise of Renewables This has gotten a lot of press, but we ...
CONTINUE READINGThat Was the Year That Was
2025 had a lot of bad environmental news, but also a few rays of hope.
2025 has been a dark time for Americans who care about the environment. Rather than being a repeat of his first term, which had been bad enough , Trump’s second term has been an all-out, brutal assault on the environment.. Major environmental rollbacks are on the way, as they were in his first term,although the rollbacks are more sweeping this time. But regulatory rollbacks can be fought in court. Other Trump actions are even more damaging. The biggest dam...
CONTINUE READINGNEPA and Democracy
The Trump Administration is at war with transparency and public input.
A striking pattern has emerged from the Administration’s paring back of NEPA. These efforts persistently target requirements for transparency and public input That applies to the administration’s permitting reforms. It also applies to the process that is generating those permitting reforms. In both situations, agencies are fleeing the light of day. Until the Trump Administration, the process of environmental review involved ample opportunities for public review....
CONTINUE READINGUsing Maps to Make Housing Politics Easier
Setting clear borders as to where upzoning to advance housing would apply may help ease the politics of housing policy
A recent article in the SF Chronicle highlighted how it has been easier for housing advocates to get upzoning reforms that facilitate housing production in Oregon – with the upzoning provisions in Oregon having significantly fewer exceptions and carveouts than comparable provisions in California. The result is that Portland has seen more movement in housing production than California has. One point made at the end of the article is the role that Oregon’s urban g...
CONTINUE READINGPoisoning the well
Trump Administration “pause” on offshore wind projects undermines prospect of permitting deal
Yesterday, the Trump Administration announced that it was “pausing” construction for the five major offshore wind projects on the East Coast, based on “national security” grounds – because of the possibility that wind turbines can interfere with radar operations. This announcement is, to say the least, not helpful for current permitting reform discussions. It emphasizes further that any permitting reform deal has to ensure that the Administration both (a) ...
CONTINUE READINGA Year After the LA Fires, Who’s Accountable for a Resilient Recovery?
Altadena and the Palisades are moving forward but outcomes depend on survivors’ access to resources. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Last week, on a warm December evening in Los Angeles, my husband and I were tidying our backyard after hosting a holiday lunch when our street’s palm trees began listing in a strong wind. I felt a chill run down my spine then, the same chill I felt the next day when I smelled smoke in the air while picking my child up from an after-school playdate at a friend’s home in the hills above Brentwood Village. In my bones I felt transported back to that terrible week in Jan...
CONTINUE READINGEveryday Christmas: The Gift of the Commons
Clean air. Clean water. We receive these public goods every day without payment
One of the Christmas classics is the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, Stewart's character, is despondent about his life until he learns how much he has unknowingly helped others and how grateful they are. It's heartwarming, if also a bit corny. There’s a flip side to that story: the need to remember how much others have contributed to our own lives. That includes people we don’t know who have helped give us a better planet on which t...
CONTINUE READINGCan Anyone Stop The Kennedy Center Abomination?
The answer may surprise you!!
A friend wrote to me on Friday, asking: isn’t Trump’s "renaming" of the Kennedy Center obviously illegal?” I couldn’t help responding: "what is this ‘illegal’ of which you speak?” Trump has broken so many laws with impunity, and been given a pass by a MAGAt Supreme Court and a supine Congress that such questions do seem quaint. For the record, the renaming is clearly illegal. 20 U.S.C. Section 76(h) reads in relevant part: There is established...
CONTINUE READINGGames Deregulators Play
Here are the six moves the Trump EPA consistently uses to justify deregulation.
Every deregulation is different, of course, but there are stock arguments that seem to surface again and again. There's a litany of legal arguments (citing Loper Bright, the Major Questions Doctrine, etc.) But there is also a menagerie of dubious policy arguments. The policy analysis also tends to be very slipshod and cursory, but that's a topic for a different time. Here are the half dozen policy arguments that the Administration favors the most. SOWING DOUB...
CONTINUE READINGOne Big Energy Idea for the Next Governor
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
If the candidates running to be California’s next governor want a prepackaged idea for how to reduce pollution while making energy more affordable in 2026, here’s one that has been hiding in plain sight. Make a modernization plan to direct money for electrification that is currently being diverted unnecessarily into aging gas infrastructure. But don’t take my word for it, read my UCLA colleagues who just last week put out a detailed report called “Go Big...
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