Recent Articles

Draft Cap and Trade Legislation

October 30, 2008 17:07

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has released draft cap-and-trade legislation. On the key issue of whether allowances will be allocated by the government or auctioned, the draft legislation incorporates a range of possible alternatives, from mostly allocated to all auctioned. Under the...

Big Picture Facts

August 18, 2008 15:39

The legal literature on climate change tends to focus on particular issues, and only rarely reads the big picture facts that drive the issue.  A recent article in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert reported these key facts:"This year, the world is expected to burn through some thirty-one billion ...

ARB Scoping Plan

June 30, 2008 15:20

The California Air Resources Board has released its draft scoping plan.

Report Documents Current Effects of Global Warming

June 17, 2008 18:38

An interesting report from the University of Maryland's Joint Global Change Research Institute documents the current effects of climate change in the U.S. This report is of interest because (1) it identifies effects that are specific enough that they might be the subject of litigation, and (2) it...

Los Angeles GHG Credit Program Announced

February 15, 2008 17:18

GHG credit markets are taking on a local flavor. At its February 1, 2008 meeting, the South Coast Air Quality Management District governing board approved a workplan for implementing a voluntary GHG emission reduction credit program, known as SoCal Climate Solutions Exchange Program. An...

Fees for GHG Emissions

February 11, 2008 17:35

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has proposed a fee for emissions of GHGs from all facilities with stationary sources in its jurisdiction. The proposed fee has been cited in the press as in essence a carbon tax, but it is not. It is a cost-recovery fee to fund the Air District's GHG...

CEQA Significance Determinations

February 05, 2008 23:04

CEQA significance determinations have been the focus of much of the early climate change litigation in Calfiornia. The California Air Pollution Control Officers Association has a new white paper on how to determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from a project are significant under CEQA, how to...

Fiat or Collaboration?

January 17, 2008 02:23

We were recently contacted by PENNumbra, www.pennumbra.com, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review's online supplement about a debate it is featuring on the process of making environmental law -- should we continue the current regulatory process, in which regulated entities are subject to...

Proposed Reporting Regulations

January 03, 2008 21:10

The proposed reporting regulations make interesting reading. You can review the ARB staff's Initial Statement of Reasons and draft regulations here.Interestingly, the ARB staff estimates a fairly low cost of compliance for the reporting obligations that the new regulations will impose -- on the...

Will the IPCC and the Nobel Committee decide the next US Presidential election?

January 03, 2008 21:10

Today, two related news stories broke that could decide the next US Presidential election. First, greenhouse gases, which were not expected to cross the critical 450 ppm threshold for another decade, in fact are already at 455. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will report next...