This report seeks to introduce California’s experience in emissions trading to Chinese regulators and researchers in the context of broader debates over emissions trading. The report introduces California’s experience with two emissions trading systems (ETS): a statewide carbon ETS and the Los Angeles-area regional emissions trading system for SO2 and NOx, known as the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM).
This report describes and analyzes selected aspects of California’s statewide greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program, which went into effect in 2012. The system is one component of California’s overall strategy for achieving its state-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.
Most appliances, like furnaces and water heaters, are powered by fossil fuels and emit nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other harmful pollutants in and near our homes. These emissions have serious public health and environmental consequences for Californians, contributing to approximately five hundred premature deaths every year and hampering California’s efforts to meet its ambitious climate goals. Governmental action is needed to facilitate more widespread adoption and development of these healthier alternative technologies available today.
On April 11, 2022, as part of the Frank G. Wells Clinic in Environmental Law, clinic co-director Cara Horowitz and Emmett/Frankel Fellow Heather Dadashi filed an amicus curiae brief to the California Court of Appeal in an appeal of a decision where LA Waterkeeper successfully challenged the granting of discharge permits for four Southern California water treatment plants using a “waste and unreasonable use” claim.
On July 19, 2021, Cara Horowitz, Co-Director of the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic, wrote to staff of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to share information relevant to the potential phase-out of oil and gas production activities in the Inglewood Oil Field, the largest urban oil field in the U.S., and to provide an assessment of how to accomplish such a phase-out. The letter was researched and drafted by Clinic students Madison Dipman ‘22 and Reilly Nelson ‘22 and was submitted on behalf of Clinic client the Natural Resources Defense Council.
On June 10, 2021, ten Emmett Institute faculty members submitted comments to EPA supporting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Preemption rule, which would repeal the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule Part One: One National Program rule (2019 Rule). The comment letter argues the 2019 Rule contravened Congress’ intent in enacting the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and its subsequent amendments, relied on dubious legal authority to adopt a preemption determination, and failed to adhere to bedrock principles of administrative procedure.
California’s drive toward statewide carbon neutrality by 2045 relies on two related transitions: completely decarbonizing the state’s electrical grid; and shifting as many energy sources and fuels to electricity as possible. Transitioning buildings from natural gas to electricity–their heating and cooling systems, water heaters, and cooking equipment–is among the state’s highest priorities for the coming decade.
California has enacted ambitious climate goals, including a statewide carbon neutrality target by 2045. While much of the required greenhouse gas reductions will come from clean technology and emission reduction programs, meeting these targets will necessitate new methods of actively removing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing difficult-to-mitigate emissions, including via technologies broadly known as engineered carbon removal.
On May 18, 2020, Emmett Institute supervising attorney and project director Julia Stein and co-executive director Sean Hecht filed a comment letter to EPA on behalf of 100 U.S. law professors urging the agency to withdraw its revamped “Transparency in Science” rule. As written, the rule would foreclose EPA’s ability to rely on important peer-reviewed scientific studies that inform key environmental protections, like safe drinking water standards and pesticide regulations, where the underlying data supporting those studies are not publicly available.
On July 1, 2020, Sean Hecht and Ted Lamm of Berkeley Law filed a brief on behalf of the National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks in Union of Concerned Scientists, et al. v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The authors show that climate change- and air pollution-related harms occurring in California's National Parks provide direct evidence of the compelling and extraordinary conditions that justify California’s vehicle emissions program.