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Articles 91 - 120 of 136
Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law
She Sells Seawalls Down By The Seashore, Tricia Lee
She Sells Seawalls Down By The Seashore, Tricia Lee
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Comment argues that a bill similar to Assembly Bill 2943 should be proposed today because there has been a drastic shift towards a general acceptance of global warming since 2002. In addition, new environmental studies support the idea of curbing seawall construction along the California coast.
Section I will provide data regarding rising sea levels and the current state of seawall construction along the California coast. It will then explain why seawall construction is not a viable adaptation strategy and delve into its negative social, environmental, and economic impacts.
Section II will examine California’s current policies for protecting coastal …
Electric Power Resource "Shuffling" And Subnational Carbon Regulation: Looking Upstream For A Solution, Jim Rossi, Andrew J.D. Smith
Electric Power Resource "Shuffling" And Subnational Carbon Regulation: Looking Upstream For A Solution, Jim Rossi, Andrew J.D. Smith
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
The potential for shuffling in wholesale power markets thwarts California’s ability to meet its AB 32 GHG emission reduction goals, and may even lead to emissions increases. Yet, as California’s efforts illustrate, resource shuffling is extremely difficult to regulate at the state level. Short of California aggressively reducing its emissions limits to reflect the leakage problem of shuffling, the state is incapable of solving the problem on its own.
As states follow California’s lead in crafting their own approaches to regulating GHG emissions, national solutions will be necessary to address the problem of resource shuffling, given interstate markets in wholesale …
Carbonite Legal Conflict In California, Steven Ferrey
Carbonite Legal Conflict In California, Steven Ferrey
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article thaws several legal layers of California carbonite, tranche- by-tranche, and examines the legal fabric. First, in Section II we examine federal Constitutional challenges to California’s A.B. 32 and sustainable energy statutes under the Supremacy Clause. Section III analyzes litigation against California carbon control pursuant to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Section IV analyzes challenges to the California regulation pursuant to state law violations, distinguishing those which proceed from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and those which utilize other state administrative laws to challenge California’s carbon choices and implementation. Section V examines the trilogy of litigation set …
The Lacey Act Amendments Of 2008: The World's First Ban On Illegal Logging Combats Deforestation But Gets Stumped By Foreign Laws, Yijin J. Lee
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
By exploring the history of the United States’ legislative efforts in dealing with the problems deforestation has caused and the origins of the Lacey Act, it is possible to understand the inspiration behind the 2008 amendments to the act. Further, exploring the minute details of the Lacey Act amendments and understanding how the amendments have changed the power and meaning behind the original Lacey Act highlights the amendments’ strengths and weaknesses. Also, in understanding how the new amendments are being implemented and enforced, it is possible to see which federal agencies are putting force behind the words of the Lacey …
Legal, Technical, And Economic Challenges In Integrating Renewable Power Generation Into The Electricity Grid, Timothy P. Duane, Kiran H. Griffith
Legal, Technical, And Economic Challenges In Integrating Renewable Power Generation Into The Electricity Grid, Timothy P. Duane, Kiran H. Griffith
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article addresses the legal, technical, and economic challenges of integrating high levels of renewable power generation into electrical grid system operation. Part II shows that the primary integration challenge is reducing the total costs of integration and allocating the costs of integration in a hybrid regulatory structure, which presents different institutional impediments than traditional cost-of-service ratemaking or rate-of-return regulation. We demonstrate that the primary impediment to improved integration is a failure to make the critical policy choice about how such costs will be allocated. Part III describes and analyzes the BPA-wind dispute in order to evaluate the adequacy of …
Who Regulates The Smart Grid? : Ferc's Authority Over Demand Response Compensation In Wholesale Electricity Markets, Joel B. Eisen
Who Regulates The Smart Grid? : Ferc's Authority Over Demand Response Compensation In Wholesale Electricity Markets, Joel B. Eisen
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article argues that Order 745 is both justified under the Federal Power Act (FPA) and important to ensure the transition to a clean energy future. A challenge to Order 745, Electric Power Supply Association v. FERC, is currently pending in the D.C. Circuit. This Article contends that Order 745 should be upheld against this challenge because it fits within FERC’s broad authority to regulate the wholesale power markets.
Harmonizing Distributed Energy And The Endangered Species Act, J. B. Ruhl
Harmonizing Distributed Energy And The Endangered Species Act, J. B. Ruhl
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article explores ways of harmonizing distributed energy and the ESA, a goal consistent with the national policy for renewable energy conservation. Several legal practitioners and scholars have identified the ESA as a potentially significant constraint on the siting and operation of wind power facilities. The ESA has also been identified as a potential barrier to renewable energy in general, as solar power, biomass, and ocean tide and wave facilities could have their own sets of impacts triggering ESA regulation. But most of this attention has been devoted to utility-scale renewable energy, with distributed energy largely ignored or perhaps assumed …
Waste Not, Want Not: Landfill Gas To Energy Projects, Climate Change, And The Clean Air Act, Katherine A. Trisolini
Waste Not, Want Not: Landfill Gas To Energy Projects, Climate Change, And The Clean Air Act, Katherine A. Trisolini
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article aims to address this gap, proposing how the Rule could be amended to reduce methane generally and enhance LGTE specifically.
The sections discuss legal mechanisms to reduce landfill methane emissions and promote LGTE where appropriate, focusing on the federal Clean Air Act’s potential role in regulating landfill gas emissions. Section II explains the adverse effects of methane emissions generally and the potential benefits of reducing landfill emissions specifically. Section III describes federal emissions standards under the Clean Air Act and incentive programs for expanded use of LGTE. The discussion highlights potential conflicts between divergent means of regulating landfill …
Climate Changes Disputes At The World Trade Organization: National Energy Policies And International Trade Liability, Nilmini Silva-Send
Climate Changes Disputes At The World Trade Organization: National Energy Policies And International Trade Liability, Nilmini Silva-Send
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article draws attention to the different outcomes that may result when WTO law is applied to resolve climate related national energy policy disputes, signals this might send for national energy policies, and how a subtle effect of indirect state liability may arise. Several pending or unresolved complaints currently at the WTO are used to demonstrate these effects. The complaints include the greenhouse gas controversy, the wind energy subsidies complaint, and the feed-in tariffs complaint. The next section, Section II, presents the basic WTO obligations of the four countries involved in these complaints (Japan, Canada, USA, China), and ways that …
South Africa's Electricity Crisis: The Need To Reconcile Environmental Policy Decisions With International Treaties, Brittany D. Botterill
South Africa's Electricity Crisis: The Need To Reconcile Environmental Policy Decisions With International Treaties, Brittany D. Botterill
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Comment examines whether South Africa’s treaty obligations conflict with the requirement of the country’s government to provide electricity to a burgeoning home-owning population. Section II introduces Eskom, South Africa’s largest utility company, which produces most of the electricity used in South Africa and surrounding countries. Section III discusses South Africa’s role in the Southern Africa Power Pool and the additional obligations this membership places on the country. Section IV then examines the controversial loan that South Africa received from the World Bank to assist in building the Medupi coal-fired power plant. Section V illustrates South Africa’s climate change obligations …
Expedited Approval Of Energy Projects: Toward Assessing The Forms Of Procedural Relief, Michael B. Gerrard
Expedited Approval Of Energy Projects: Toward Assessing The Forms Of Procedural Relief, Michael B. Gerrard
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This research is heading toward two further sets of questions, which may or may not be reached in the current phase of the work.
First, if certain permits or reviews can be dispensed with for certain projects, and there are few negative collateral consequences, do we need these permits and reviews at all? Every proposed project is important to someone, and arguments can almost always be mounted that a given kind of project warrants special treatment. The present inquiry may help identify some requirements that are obsolete and should not apply to anyone, and it may also help identify others …
Foreword, Dan Hua
Foreword, Dan Hua
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
On April 15, 2011, the San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law and the Energy Policy Initiatives Center co-hosted the Third Annual Climate & Energy Law Symposium. The Symposium examined various emerging law and policy approaches to encourage clean energy. At the Symposium, panels consisting of legal and policy experts from across the country addressed and debated a variety of key issues including the coordination of state and federal roles in the clean energy sector, the design of policies and markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and the balance between energy and environmental protection.
State Renewable Portfolio Standards: Is There A "Race" And Is It "To The Top"?, Lincoln L. Davies
State Renewable Portfolio Standards: Is There A "Race" And Is It "To The Top"?, Lincoln L. Davies
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article proceeds in six parts. Part II offers a primer on RPSs, describing RPSs primary traits, how the laws are designed, why they are enacted, and how that relates to regulatory races. Part III overviews the literature on regulatory races, contrasting races to the bottom with races to the top. Part IV conceptualizes how state enactments of RPSs might be viewed as a race to the top. Part V examines evidence on whether RPSs can in fact be understood as a regulatory race. Using this evidence, Part V determines that state RPSs do not appear to be trending toward …
Solar Energy Development On The Federal Public Lands: Environmental Trade-Offs On The Road To A Lower Carbon Future, Robert L. Glicksman
Solar Energy Development On The Federal Public Lands: Environmental Trade-Offs On The Road To A Lower Carbon Future, Robert L. Glicksman
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
The federal government has endorsed more extensive use of the federal public lands for the production of solar power, both to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and to bolster the security of domestic energy supplies. Spurred by grant money made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2010 approved nine utility-scale solar projects on public lands in California and Nevada. These projects were designed to avoid adversely affecting the habitats of endangered and threatened species that frequent the desert southwest and cultural resources important to …
Energy And Animals: A History Of Conflict, Alexandra B. Klass
Energy And Animals: A History Of Conflict, Alexandra B. Klass
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Environmental groups, federal and state agencies, and others who support the development of renewable energy have struggled in recent years with the adverse impacts of such development on animals and animal habitat. Although renewable energy development has the benefit of creating energy without the greenhouse gas emissions associated with traditional energy development, it does so through an intensive use of land, including federal public lands, thus competing with habitats for protected species and other wildlife. Conflicts between energy and animals, of course, are nothing new. Congress, agencies, and courts have attempted for decades to balance the public interest in domestic …
Port And Coastal State Control Of Atmospheric Pollution, Michael W. Reed
Port And Coastal State Control Of Atmospheric Pollution, Michael W. Reed
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Controlling atmospheric pollution which originates beyond national borders always presents difficult issues. The problems are multiplied when the source is a merchant vessel, registered under a foreign flag of convenience and operating seaward of state and federal sovereign limits. Nevertheless, international law provides alternative approaches through which the coastal sovereign may protect its onshore environmental interests.
The purpose of this paper is to lay out the problems, both factual and legal, and discuss means by which they may be resolved. California is used as a case study. The state has long suffered from excessive air pollution. Congress acknowledged the state?s …
Regulation, Climate Change, And The Electric Grid, Davod B. Spence
Regulation, Climate Change, And The Electric Grid, Davod B. Spence
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
In Part I of this essay, I outline some of the background characteristics of the electric grid, the way it is operated, and the way regulators and grid operators manage the sale and transmission of electricity across it. In Part II, I explore the opportunities and potential problems associated with integrating intermittent, renewable sources of electric generation into the grid. This discussion includes a review of a number of recent studies examining the GHG emissions effects of using fossil fueled generation to back up wind power, as well as the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission?s (FERC) recent rulemakings addressing this …
The Politics Of Clean Energy: Moving Beyond The Beltway, Joseph P. Tomain
The Politics Of Clean Energy: Moving Beyond The Beltway, Joseph P. Tomain
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Article argues that the United States can achieve a new and smart energy policy and that we are taking active steps in this direction. Off of the Hill, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there is clear thinking about clean energy. Consider President Obamas choice for Secretary of Commerce, John Bryson. Bryson has been the CEO of a public electric utility, a founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and sits on the boards of such organizations as Boeing and Disney and clean energy firms like Coda Automotive and BrightSource Energy exactly the right job description for a clean energy advocate. …
Space Commercialization: The Need To Immediately Renegotiate Treaties Implicating International Environmental Law, Alexander G. Davis
Space Commercialization: The Need To Immediately Renegotiate Treaties Implicating International Environmental Law, Alexander G. Davis
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Outer space is truly the final frontier for both scientific exploration and frontier-style commercialization. Given its extra-national nature, international treaties have formed the basis of space law, but these treaties predate any notion of the true potential for space commercialization. The private sector has relied on this regulation-free industry when developing its spacecraft, mission structure, and operating procedures, often to the detriment of Earth's and its surrounding environment, with space debris, i.e. space junk or space trash, and greenhouse gas emissions being the primary externalities. This Comment provides a background on the commercial space industry and applicable law and treaties, …
Administrative Absurdity: Why The Judiciary Should Uphold Epa's Use Of The Administrative Necessity And Absurd Results Doctrines Within The Tailoring Rule., David P. Vincent
Administrative Absurdity: Why The Judiciary Should Uphold Epa's Use Of The Administrative Necessity And Absurd Results Doctrines Within The Tailoring Rule., David P. Vincent
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This Comment analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments advanced by EPA as well as its opponents regarding the Agencys reliance on these administrative law doctrines to tailor PSD and Title V applicability criteria. The Comment concludes with an explanation of why the judiciary will likely rule in EPAs favor in this instance.
Part I of this Comment introduces the Tailoring Rule, including its background and the emissions thresholds it seeks to implement regarding PSD and Title V programs. Part II presents EPAs legal basis for the creation and subsequent implementation of the Tailoring Rule, including the concept of …
Why Not A Regional Approach To State Renewable Power Mandates?, Kirsten H. Engel
Why Not A Regional Approach To State Renewable Power Mandates?, Kirsten H. Engel
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
There is much to be said in favor of a regional approach with respect to renewable energy mandates. First, uniformity in the particulars of state RPS laws would assist the growing interstate renewable energy market. Second, allowing renewable power that is generated anywhere but delivered locally to satisfy the RPS of any of the states within the region, should enhance the reliability of the market for renewable power, increase the amount of intermittent power accommodated by the grid, and lower the price of renewable power. Each of these effects will strengthen the regional market for renewable power to the overall …
Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi
Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Part I of this Article provides an illustration of the feed-in tariff one clean energy innovation many state and municipal governments have enacted to encourage investment in renewable energy. In a nutshell, the feed-in tariff is a secure contract for renewable power at a set price over a term of years that provides a return to investors in these projects, such as a homeowner installing a solar panel or wind turbine. Part II of this Article describes preemption issues that have risen with feed-in tariffs under two federal statutes the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, which requires utilities …
Effective Renewable Energy Policy: Leave It To The States?, Steven Weissman
Effective Renewable Energy Policy: Leave It To The States?, Steven Weissman
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
The federal system employed in the United States offers many models for cooperation between the federal government and the states in pursuit of important policy objectives. Under the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can establish air quality standards and delegate enforcement to the states. The Coastal Zone Management Act empowers states to establish plans for management of ocean waters close to shore and to have a say related to offshore projects that are in federal jurisdictional waters. The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 allows coal states to set and enforce their own rules related …
An Environmental Competition Statute, David M. Driesen
An Environmental Competition Statute, David M. Driesen
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
The next generation of environmental law should use economic incentives to creatively stimulate innovation in environmental technology. This Article proposes an environmental competition statute as a means of stimulating movement toward a more sustainable future. Such a statute would authorize those who achieve low emissions to collect the cost of achieving low emissions plus a premium from competitors with higher emissions.
This Article briefly explains the value of using this mechanism. It then canvasses the problems with the first and second generation of environmental law that an environmental competition statute can help us overcome. A detailed description of an environmental …
Climate Change Law In And Over Time, Richard J. Lazarus
Climate Change Law In And Over Time, Richard J. Lazarus
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
The critical lesson for climate change legislation is that the pending lawmaking moment must include the enactment of provisions specifically designed to maintain the legislation’s ability to achieve its long-term objectives over the longer term. For climate change legislation to be successful, the new legal framework must simultaneously be flexible in certain respects and steadfast in others. Flexibility is necessary to allow for the modification of legal requirements over time in light of new information. Steadfastness or “stickiness” is important to maintain the stability of a law’s requirements over time. The need for both is particularly great for climate change …
Adapting To Climate Change With Law That Bends Without Breaking, Holly Doremus
Adapting To Climate Change With Law That Bends Without Breaking, Holly Doremus
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
Climate change, the key environmental challenge of this century, is a tough problem for law in many ways. The topic of this panel, instrument choice, highlights a particularly difficult, important, and under-recognized aspect of the climate change challenge: the difficulty of devising a system of environmental law that combines the flexibility necessary to deal with a changing world with the rigidity and accountability essential to hold us to the difficult task of environmental protection.
How To Love The One You're With: Changing Tax Policy To Fit Cap-And-Trade, Roberta Mann
How To Love The One You're With: Changing Tax Policy To Fit Cap-And-Trade, Roberta Mann
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
This paper will begin with an introduction of climate change issues, including a brief history of international mitigation efforts. The next section will give an overview of cap-and-trade systems and describe how a typical cap-and-trade system would interact with the current federal income tax system. The discussion of the interaction of cap-and-trade with the income tax will include both direct and indirect effects. This section will then compare those effects with the potential impact of a carbon tax. The direct impacts of cap-and-trade on the income tax system occur because the “trade” part of cap-and-trade creates a new financial instrument …
Looking Back To Move Forward: Revisiting The Btu In Evaluating Current Policy Alternatives, Walter Wang
Looking Back To Move Forward: Revisiting The Btu In Evaluating Current Policy Alternatives, Walter Wang
San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law
To evaluate the current policy alternatives, it is necessary to take a step back and revisit the Btu tax proposed by the Clinton Administration. Although seventeen years have passed since the Btu tax was proposed, and the U.S. is at war in theaters that are much different from those in which it was involved during the Clinton Administration, the landscape of the climate change debate has not changed dramatically. The lessons learned from the policies espoused by the Btu tax proposal may be critical in determining how to best approach climate change legislation today.