Articles

Author:  Damien M. Schiff On Monday, the California Supreme Court issued an unanimous decision in Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD).  The case concerned whether SCAQMD, the regional state air quality agency, had to prepare an environmental impact report (EIR) under t ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Late last month, a superior court judge in El Dorado County overturned a regional water quality control board's decision to cede permitting authority over timber harvests to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA).  The decision comes from an environmentalist lawsuit brought by Sierra Forest Legacy ...

Last week, the California Supreme Court granted review in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley.  The case concerns the scope of the single-family residence “categorical exemption” under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  Pursuant to CEQA, an environmental impact report must be prepared for every discretio ...

When I posted about supporting farming on AgDay this week, I was thinking about the importance of protecting farmers’ property rights.  And maybe that legislatures should act to reduce the regulatory burdens farmers face.  On the other hand, some members of the California legislature think that supporting farmers requires stripping them of ...

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court handed down a win for citizen democracy in California, by ruling that local voter initiatives are not subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act, even when they are adopted directly by a city council or county board of supervisors, as the law allows, rather than being submitted to ̷ ...

Environment — Victory in California Supreme Court The California Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court (Wal-Mart Stores).  There, after Tuolumne County voters submitted an initiative allowing a Wall-Mart store, the County adopted the initiative.  However, anti-Wall-Mart ...

This morning the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley, announcing that projects which are categorically exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act are exempt even if they might have negative environmental impacts. The Court’s decision is consistent with Pacif ...

Environment — Victory for common sense in permitting reviews The California Supreme Court issued this opinion in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley, a case dealing with environmental reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA.) That statute, much like its federal anal ...

WOTUS halted! A federal district court judge in North Dakota enjoined with this order EPA from enforcing it’s new breathtakingly illegal Waters of the United States rule.  The court found that the harm to the states who had sued was potentially considerable and that there was a likelihood of success in the merits.  This result … ...