Articles

The story of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the valley elderberry longhorn beetle is a frustrating one, demonstrating the absurd realities of federal environmental regulation and putting to rest the notion that the Endangered Species Act is a flawless statute. The valley elderberry longhorn beetle should be an ESA success story.  In 1980, ...

The 29th annual ALI-ABA program on eminent domain will be held this January 26-28th in San Diego.  The course promises to be particularly timely this year in light of the recent California Supreme Court decision that effectively ended, for the time being, redevelopment agencies in California. The impact of the court’s ruling in Community Red ...

The Washington Post‘s Robert Barnes has a story here on the Sackett case, which will be argued on Monday: The Supreme Court will review the Sacketts’ four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple’s favor could curtail the EPA’s authority and mea ...

Some recent articles about Sackett v. EPA, such as those mentioned and linked to by Timothy Sandefur in his post earlier today, as well as comments on those articles, seem to want to steer this case toward the Sacketts personally, rather than the issues in this case.  But this case is not really about the … ...

I really enjoyed this article from the Marin Independent Journal. It concerns a recent forum held by the Marin Coalition on Marin County’s lack of racial diversity.   The forum revolved around two speakers who were presenting, according to the reporter, “their alternative versions of reality during the luncheon.”  More o ...

My colleague Ralph Kasarda recently authored an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in Magner v. Gallagher, a case challenging whether the disparate impact theory is cognizable under the Fair Housing Act.  PLF was joined by the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Center for Equal Opportunity on its amicus brief. The brief ...

Regarding the independent panel report on the delta smelt X2 testimony controversy, reviews of the report suggest that the two federal scientists who provided the testimony at issue have been vindicated, and that Judge Wanger’s Fall 2011 criticism of the scientists can now be said to be (as the Department of Interior told the Contra … ...

The AP has a brief story here about the oral argument this morning in Sackett v. EPA. Early reports suggest that the justices were very skeptical of the EPA’s position: “Justice Samuel Alito called EPA’s actions ‘outrageous.’ Justice Antonin Scalia noted the ‘high-handedness of the agency’ in dealing with private p ...

…is now available online. The audio should become available at the end of the week. … ...