California’s marine conservation regime is a model for the world, and includes a statewide network of marine protected areas and other marine managed areas (MMAs). But management authority remains distributed across multiple government entities, potentially compromising ecosystem-based approaches and adaptive management. The University of California, Irvine School of Law's Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources conducted extensive interviews and roundtable discussions to explore the current framework for managing coastal water quality and monitoring in the context of MMAs.

This Article, excerpted from Michael B. Gerrard & John C. Dernbach, eds., Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (forthcoming in 2018 from ELI Press), discusses legal impediments and solutions for customer, community, and third-party financing of behind-the-meter and community-scale clean energy generation, storage, and energy efficiency. Current levels of investment by utilities and independent power producers fall well below levels needed to meet deep decarbonization goals.

On the first Earth Day in 1970, Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-Me.) called for “a total strategy to protect the total environment.” More than 50 years later, the parameters of a “total strategy” are at last coming into view.

The Donald Trump Administration has been attempting to roll back a wide array of regulations, including rules that have governed methane emissions, established energy-efficiency standards, and defined “waters of the United States.” The U.S. administrative law framework allows rules to be changed or undone, but governs how these modifications can happen. In most cases, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) mandates justifications similar to those required for an original rulemaking if a regulation is to be cancelled or rescinded.

To date, scholars and policymakers have focused primarily on whether and how the government should regulate the sharing economy—that is, on what form, if any, regulation should take. This Article focuses on a logically antecedent question—who should decide. Using the potentially significant, yet uncertain, environmental impacts of Uber and Lyft as a case study, this Article argues that regulatory authority should be allocated according to the principle of precautionary federalism.

With the new technologies, many species we are currently protecting could technically be unsuitable for protection based on a rigid interpretation of the ESA. A defined hybrid policy must be adopted, taking into consideration the twin aims of protecting genetic lineages and protecting ecosystems.

While the nation has made great progress on a number of environmental fronts, the size and cost of the federal environmental regulatory bureaucracy have come under sharp criticism. One alternative policy approach—long available, but underutilized—is based on the straightforward governmental use of line drawing (also known as “geographic delineations”).

Surely net metering has played an important role in the story about solar development in the United States. But, as a policy, net metering is the equivalent of looking in the rearview mirror. If we want a dynamic, responsive energy system, then we need to look ahead and toward smart rate designs that do not favor certain customers over others. We need rates that work to the benefit of all customers and their unique energy needs.

Prof. Richard L. Revesz and Dr. Burcin Unel propose an “Avoided Cost Plus Social Benefit” valuation protocol for clean distributed energy.

Utilities concerned about lost revenues have begun urging state legislatures and public service commissions to impose fixed charges for net metering customers and to decrease the rate of compensation those customers receive for the energy they generate. Environmentalists and individuals seeking to generate their own electricity for financial or libertarian reasons have argued opposite positions. One goal of this Article is to evaluate the respective arguments.