If Shasta Fields ’23 were to have a superhero name, it would be Earth Protector. The graduating 3L came to UCLA School of Law specifically to make waves in environmental law.

She succeeded. Fields’ experience includes clerking with a major environmental nonprofit, working on a case with the California Attorney General’s Office, researching zoning laws as part of her participation in the Environmental Law Clinic, serving as president of the Environmental Law Society (ELS) and serving as chief comment editor for the Journal of Environmental Law and Policy (JELP).

“Welcome to Sacramento, California” reads the sign that greets Adrianne Davies, Owen McAleer and Gabi Rosenfeld as they step off the airplane.

This report by Leadership Counsel and UCLA’s Environmental Law Clinic reveals the major role that land use policy continues to play in perpetuating the poor environmental conditions and health disparities that face low-income communities and communities of color.

On January 20, 2023, faculty at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit supporting the right of the Environmental Protection Agency to grant a long-held waiver to California to regulate vehicle emissions more stringently than the federal government.

Joint development of parks and affordable housing combines public green space and low-income or public housing on a single site, or on different sites in the same area, to simultaneously address park poverty, housing insecurity, and climate change-related urban heat impacts.