Law Commons^™

Green Garbage: A State Comparison Of Marijuana Packaging And Waste Management, Kevin Dalia

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This article provides a brief historiography of legislative prejudice against marijuana to provide greater context as to why marijuana laws are strict, excessive, and improperly motivated, leading to environmental concerns that could be mitigated. The article compares waste management, packaging, and labeling regulations in the ten states that have legalized commercial marijuana. This comparison allows us to explore two sides of the same regulatory coin, showing examples of excessive and environmentally harmful regulations on one side, while highlighting regulations that should serve as exemplars for future legislation on the other. Also included are some of the industry practices and community …

Hostile Environments: Public Health And Environmental Impacts Of The Trump Administration’S Attempted Reversal Of Sex Stereotyping As Sex Based Discrimination, Jude Diebold

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

In 2013, Aimee Stephens, an employee of six years at R.G & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, informed her employer she is transgender, and would begin living as a woman full time. The employer disbelieved Stephens’ gender identity; they viewed Stephens as male, and in violation of their sex specific dress code for men, which requires men to wear button downs and ties, and women to wear skirts and heels. Two weeks after informing her employer of her true gender identity, Harris Funeral Homes fired Stephens, stating that her refusal to abide by the sex specific dress code as a “biological …

Vertical Consistency In The Climate Change Context, Susan M. Bradford

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This paper explores the role of general plan consistency in the context of climate change. As California’s statewide response to global warming continues to evolve, new statutory and regulatory requirements are changing the scope of local land use planning, both directly and indirectly. The San Diego case provides one example of how this changing legal framework has led to new kinds of land use conflicts over competing strategies for climate mitigation. The growing imperative for local governments to rethink land uses in response to climate change could signal a larger role for general plan consistency as a lever for enforcing …

Proceedings Of The 2019 California Water Law Symposium Panel Organized By Ggu School Of Law: Sgma And Interconnected Groundwatersurface Water, Kevin O'Brien, Richard Frank, Andy Sawyer, Alletta Belin, Paul Stanton Kibel

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (“SGMA”) has been the topic of many discussions since its enactment in 2014. The overarching goal of SGMA is to achieve sustainable groundwater basins through management plans “without causing undesirable results.” Considering the importance and magnitude of this task, it comes as no surprise that SGMA was the theme for the February 2019 California Water Law Symposium, held at the University of California (“UC”), Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. For the Symposium, Golden Gate University School of Law (“GGU”) students gathered a panel of experts to explore the relationship between groundwater plans and …

The Animal Welfare Act Is Lacking: How To Update The Federal Statute To Improve Zoo Animal Welfare, Rebecca L. Jodidio

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Visiting the zoo is a beloved national pastime — American zoos attract 183 million people annually. For many Americans, zoos provide the first, and sometimes only, opportunity for individuals to be in the presence of animals outside of domesticated cats and dogs. However, for the animals themselves, zoos can cause suffering.

Two philosophies support the protection of wild animals in captivity: an anthropocentric and ecocentric view. According to the former, anthropocentric view, wild animals hold an extrinsic value and when they cease to be valuable to humans, or conflict with our other values, their interests can be sacrificed. The latter, …

Federalism And Water: The California Experience, Clifford T. Lee

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

The struggle between California’s water plentiful north and the water deficient south has marked water conflict in the state for the last century. This struggle has played out in repeated disputes over the operation of the federal Central Valley Project (“CVP”) and the California State Water Project (“SWP”), the two inter-basin water conveyance facilities that deliver water through-out the state. Commencing in the 1920’s and 30’s with the enactment of California’s area of origin statutes and extending in more recent times to federal and state environmental laws, a complex set of legal requirements constrain the CVP and the SWP’s ability …

Why It Is Time For A “Calfire Divorce”: The Case For Establishing An Independent Forest And Resource Management Agency To Secure Healthy Forests In California, Richard A. Wilson, Sharon E. Duggan

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

It is time to remove governance of California’s core sustainable forest management mandate from CalFire to allow it to focus on its overwhelming fire agency obligations. In the absence of adequate and dedicated funding and resource personnel, CalFire is not satisfying California’s forest resource management goals and objectives. After decades of decline, California must renew its fundamental commitment to sustainable forest management. The governance of forest resource management requirements, as set forth in the Z’Berg Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973,10 should be transferred to another agency, the focus of which is resource and land conservation. California needs one dedicated …

Front Matter

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Includes Masthead, Table of Contents, School of Law Faculty, and Administration.