Circle of Blue

MAY 7, 2025

John Fleck, a writer in residence at the Utton Center at the University of New Mexicos School of Law and a close observer of the basin, said a key difference between today and the 2022 crisis is a lack of breakthrough leadership, even as the potential for interstate litigation grows. The network of governance is really frail right now.

2026

Legal Planet

JULY 7, 2025

California has long relied on CEQA as a gap-filler for its other environmental laws. As the state pares back CEQA, it should look at where it needs to update other state environmental laws to fill in gaps, where appropriate. But I also want to highlight a pitfall as the state continues looking at future reforms for CEQA.

Endangered Species Act

Union of Concerned Scientists

JANUARY 14, 2025

Governments representing more than a quarter of the US population have filed lawsuits against major corporations including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP, seeking justice for the harm caused by their lies about the dangers of their products. That intersection between science and law is what makes this work so fascinating and impactful.

Fossil Fuels

Legal Planet

APRIL 14, 2025

It makes utilities, like state government, liable for taking or damaging private property. If youre wondering about the terminology, condemnation takes place where the government sures to take property; inverse condemnation is when landowners sue because the government has already taken the property.

Government

Enviromental Defense

MAY 12, 2025

Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – Advocates from civil liberties, treaty rights and environmental organizations gathered at Queens Park to oppose the Ontario governments proposed Bill 5. We call on the Ontario government to immediately pause Bill 5.

Endangered Species Act

Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

These initiatives are designed to empower local governments and communities with the tools and funding necessary to build long-term climate resilience. However, an implementation gap remains between ICARP’s vision for a resilient California and the resources available to achieve the State’s priorities.

Sea Level

Legal Planet

JULY 9, 2025

First, SRM presents high stakes for climate risks and response – which most governments thus far have been reluctant to acknowledge. Second, it is crucial to build effective and legitimate capacity for global governance of these capabilities, including how they may interact with efforts to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

Government

Law Columbia

JULY 2, 2025

Edited by Maria Antonia Tigre and Armando Rocha , and published by Brill as part of the Nijhoff Law Specials series, the book is the first to provide a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the wave of climate-related advisory proceedings now transforming international law. The book is available open access here.

Law

Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 15, 2025

Court documents and related reporting suggest that the US government possesses evidence that the criminal scheme was indirectly paid for by ExxonMobil and that one of its lobbying firms, the Washington, DC-based DCI Group, provided a list of targets to a middleman linked to the hackers and sent the fruits of the hacking to the oil and gas company.

Fossil Fuels

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.

Law

Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

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.” Yet would anyone say that the government should therefore ignore the risk of a lab accident. It chose not to do so. Argument 3.

Air Pollution

Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 30, 2024

Installations of commercial solarsystems on businesses, schools, and government buildings, for examplewere potentially 13% higher in 2024, per Wood Mackenzie. In this vein, 2024 included advances like Massachusettss new clean energy law , which will streamline equitable siting for clean energy projects.

Clean Energy

Legal Planet

JANUARY 10, 2025

Is federal and California law preventing the amount of prescribed burns or vegetation management we need from occurring? This report (at page 13) notes that in 2017-18, California and the federal government conducted about 80,000 acres of prescribed burns in the state. Ill get into those points in more detail in some posts soon.

2017

Enviromental Defense

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

Three years after Ontarios government committed to building more homes faster, the number of homes built in Ontario is dramatically down and government sources show that without radical change fewer than half of the 1.5 Why not just get government out of the way by cutting taxes, fees, and red-tape for all new housing?

Waste

Enviromental Defense

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

It’s the government’s job to protect us and the environment from harmful chemicals in plastic…and they need to get on it While the plastics industry claims its products are sanitary and safe, the truth is much more complicated. Governments around the world, including in Canada, are caught up in the powerful plastics industry.

Fossil Fuels

Law Columbia

JUNE 27, 2025

The state legislation does not provide any guidance on what kinds of evidence should satisfy that standard, and there is no case law clarifying how to apply that standard. A handful of states leave building codes largely up to local governments to adopt and enforce—including, for example Arizona , Mississippi , and Missouri.

Cooling

Enviromental Defense

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

million homes by 2031, governments need to eliminate minimum parking requirements, reform building codes and legalize six-storey apartments on the avenues and major streets in existing neighbourhoods throughout Ontario. To deliver 1.5 That is the takeaway from a new expert housing report, released today.

Government

Legal Planet

APRIL 8, 2025

New methane satellites provide a powerful data capability for governments who want to demonstrate leadership in climate policy. open-source data platforms and international collaborations will be essential in making integrated satellite monitoring a truly global tool for environmental governance.

Carbon Dioxide

Law Columbia

MAY 23, 2025

As such, although EU and EEA law are distinct, their substance is identical with respect to the core rules of the internal market. In this sense, the EFTA Court also provides for an authoritative judicial clarification of EU law. The EEA Agreement aims to extend the core of the EU internal market to EEA/EFTA States (art.

Fossil Fuels

Enviromental Defense

APRIL 30, 2025

Ontarios government is proposing a new law that would give Mayors in 169 small towns and villages Strong Mayor powers. This law could lead to widespread corruption, continued housing shortages, and the destruction of the provinces remaining farmland. This sudden rezoning is now being challenged in court.

Government

Enviromental Defense

APRIL 3, 2025

At its core, the ongoing Greenbelt scandal is about the government stripping away permanent protection from Greenbelt land at the request of sprawl developers, all while falsely representing the removals (and other opening of farmland, forests and wetlands to sprawl) as part of a strategy to increase housing supply.

Government

Enviromental Defense

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Under CEPA, the government has the power to impose penalties as high as $250,000 for the first failure to meet reporting requirements offense and $500,000 for subsequent offenses. So far, the government has not fined CNRL for its failure to report emissions.

Government

Ocean Conservancy

JUNE 27, 2025

While plastic pollution continues to flow into our ocean with a garbage truck’s worth every minute, we have seen state and local governments across the country work diligently toward impactful solutions that will combat this crisis and protect our ocean for generations to come. See more wonderful ocean animals!

Ocean

Enviromental Defense

APRIL 23, 2025

Nearly 90 per cent of respondents want the federal government to get toxic chemicals out of products, while 86 per cent support federal action on plastic pollution. People in every part of the country recognize the threat that runaway use of unnecessary plastics poses to our health and the environment, and want our government to tackle it.

Government

Legal Planet

JUNE 23, 2025

Critically, the BRC also proposes two overarching governance structures, a Resilient Rebuilding Authority and a Los Angeles County Fire Control District, that can facilitate implementation of many of the BRC’s recommendations.

Climate Change

Legal Planet

MAY 23, 2025

“The explosion in new construction projects was also allowed by the fact that the Austin city government has made building new apartments easier in recent years, rewriting zoning laws, cutting parking requirements, and encouraging dense, walkable development.”

Government

Law Columbia

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

Crucially, the funding would also go towards social science, governance, and systems research – an acknowledgment from the NASEM committee that public engagement on emerging technologies, and whether we can govern them effectively, must be an integral part of assessing whether they should move forward.

Atmosphere

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 7, 2025

Stakeholders including utilities, regulators, governments, and communities are grappling with these questions in forums across the world, and UCS is currently closely involved in one such conversation playing out in Michigan. Siddique opened by explaining Michigan’s climate law passed in 2023.

Clean Energy

Legal Planet

OCTOBER 21, 2024

UCLA Law students in the California Environmental Legislation Clinic were fortunate to get to do some research work to assist in the development of the bill.) PROs are industry organizations, and PRO-based EPR laws task industry with coming up with their own plans to manage waste, subject to certain conditions and state oversight.

Waste

A Greener Life

JULY 27, 2025

In March 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting an advisory opinion on the following two questions: What are states’ obligations under international law to ensure the protection of the environment, and what are the legal consequences for countries under these obligations?

Paris Agreement

PA Environment Daily

DECEMBER 5, 2024

He will describe how the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, new programs have been established to inventory and properly close orphaned wells. The law allocates $4.7 billion for plugging, remediation, and restoration activities on federal, Tribal, state, and private lands.

Natural Gas

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.

Climate Change

Law Columbia

JULY 29, 2025

Echoing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its Advisory Opinion 32/25 , on July 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously held that this right constitutes a binding norm of international law. First, what are States’ obligations, under international law, to protect the climate system for present and future generations?

Fossil Fuels

Enviromental Defense

DECEMBER 23, 2024

It would seem that the Grinch has once again made off with a ramshackle sleigh full of wind turbines and solar panels and they aren’t likely to return from their shop, not unless the heart of the ole ‘Grinchy-Claus’ (aka the Alberta Government) has an unexpected growth spurt. Stay tuned.

Renewable Energy

Enviromental Defense

JUNE 24, 2025

Canada’s leading environmental law and policy organizations are calling on the Senate to make essential amendments to Bill C-5 before it becomes law. We support responsible national interest projects,” said Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association.

Law

Legal Planet

APRIL 14, 2025

As part of this process, the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley Law is leading the development of the San Francisco Bay Area Regional Report which will help guide climate adaptation and mitigation efforts throughout the region.

Climate Change

PA Environment Daily

DECEMBER 17, 2024

The Ohio River Restoration Program Act is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation, Ohio River Basin Alliance , Ohio River Way, American Rivers, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Appalachian Voices, Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, West Virginia Rivers Coalition Inc.,

Conservation