Although California has typically led the nation’s march toward a renewable future, the state’s tenacious reliance on the traditional, centralized model of energy generation has artificially stunted the potential growth of the renewable energy sector. California should therefore adopt legal structures prerequisite to widespread penetration of the community solar model in the state. Community solar is a mechanism through which multiple ratepayers can buy “shares” in a local, off-site solar system and receive bill credits for energy generated by the system.

Record review challenges to federal agency decisions in the environmental context are, arguably, among the most frequently litigated and, yet, the least frequently won or favorably settled federal cases. Several case studies from the highly regulated oil, gas, and commercial fisheries industries reveal insights into successful strategies. These case studies suggest that for lawsuits won by industry plaintiffs, common notions of record review cases as simpler, quicker, less costly, and more predictable are untrue, and that the risk of Pyrrhic procedural victories is high.

To mitigate potential property damage and risk to human safety from increased flooding, many communities across the United States are considering whether to amend and expand floodplain maps and corresponding regulatory tools. Some local governments worry that new floodplain regulations will give rise to litigation, as new laws may restrict development on private property.

A “cap-without-trade program” to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under §111 of the CAA — a program that applies a mass-based cap to each regulated source — provides compliance flexibility, making it feasible to rely on end-use energy efficiency as a compliance technique, without running the legal risks involved in trying to graft an emissions trading program on the technology-based structure written into §111. These risks are substantial but vary with the scope of the trading program.

On March 31, 2013, a magistrate judge with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. Salazar that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in issuing several oil and gas leases without first adequately analyzing the impacts of horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

After more than a decade of litigation over the management of roadless areas in national forests, several developments over the past months have brought this long and drawn-out fight nearly to a close. All but three states will be governed by the terms of the 2001 Roadless Rule, while state-specific rules in Idaho and Colorado will govern roadless areas in those two states. Alaska, with the nation’s two largest national forests, the Tongass and Chugach National Forests, as well as the most roadless acreage of any state, is the only state in which litigation continues.

The federal Clean Water Act (CWA) has been instrumental in restoring the health and safety of the nation’s bays, harbors, and beaches from industrial and municipal discharges during the past 40 years. But does the CWA now regulate Independence Day fireworks? According to some California regulators, the answer may be yes.

Doctrinal disconnects complicate adjudication of international water rights controversies. However, legal history and comparative law sources can fill gaps and build analogies to bridge differences in substantive law. Between Mexico and the United States in particular, the civil-common-law divide at times appears vast, but has been occasionally narrowed by reference to shared Roman principles of usufruct or by incorporation of Mexican law into the U.S. system.

States have traditionally played a significant role in managing wildlife, but play a very small role in implementing the Endangered Species Act, and an even smaller role with other federal wildlife statutes. The disconnect between the federal government and states (where the local knowledge is strongest) results in both inefficiencies and harmful incentives. While states and local governments are best positioned to manage local habitat, federal oversight is needed to ensure that our widely shared benefits (biodiversity) are not lost to a tragedy of the commons problem.

The only certainty concerning predictions for the future of the environment is that most of them are likely to be wrong. This is illustrated by the fate of past predictions, such as those contained in Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, Gregg Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth, and Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. While it is difficult to guess at the future of the environment, predictions concerning environmental law are even more hazardous because they turn in large part on the future of politics.