The Legal and Practical Challenges of California's Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation
Nota Bene Episode 101: Catching up with Global Climate Regulation with Nico van Aelstyn
[WEBINAR] Update on the California Environmental Quality Act: What’s New for 2018
How Southern California Wildfires Impact Air Quality, Smoke Damage, and Insurance Coverage - The Southern California wildfires in January 2025 are expected to be one of the costliest natural disasters in United States (US)...more
The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) circulated a draft template, dated April 8, 2025, to assist federal agencies in updating their procedures for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)....more
On February 13, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) filed its 71-page published opinion affirming the trial court’s judgment rejecting CEQA safety hazard and cumulative impacts analysis challenges – as well as...more
In the last four years, California has adopted some of the nation’s most innovative air regulations, including a ban on new gasoline-powered car sales by 2035 and a prohibition against diesel-fueled trucks visiting state...more
Environmental regulations targeting potential impacts of warehousing facilities continue to be in the spotlight. On September 29, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 98 into law, imposing new siting restrictions and...more
City of Los Angeles - Increase to Planning Applications and Affordable Housing Linkage Fees - On July 1, 2024, the fee for planning and land use applications increased by 3.5% based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban...more
Chemical and manufacturing groups sued the federal government on Monday over a landmark drinking water standard that would require cleanup of certain PFAS, so-called forever chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and...more
Efforts to regulate warehouses and distribution uses are not isolated to the local development moratoria and zoning code updates. At the state and regional level, the State Attorney General’s Office and regulatory agencies,...more
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (“District”) and City of Berkeley, California (“Berkeley”) on April 4th entered into a Settlement Agreement (“Agreement”) addressing alleged violations of California Air...more
City of Los Angeles - Proposed Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance - In 1999, the city council adopted the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) that enabled the conversion of commercial buildings constructed in the downtown area in...more
In its recent decision in Hilltop Group Inc. v. County of San Diego, California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal issued a number of holdings that resulted in a strong ruling in support of streamlined environmental review for...more
The California Department of Conservation last Friday released a proposal to stop issuing permits for well stimulation treatments, commonly known as fracking. Most fracking operations in California are carried out in oil...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to announce new regulations governing soot — the particles that trucks, farms, factories, wildfires, power plants, and dusty roads generate. By law, the agency isn’t...more
On September 16, 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against five of the world’s largest oil and gas companies for allegedly denying or downplaying the harm caused by fossil fuels on climate change....more
Governor Gavin Newsom signed more than a dozen significant environmental bills over the weekend, including a first-in-the-nation law requiring corporations doing business in California with more than $1 billion a year in...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a rule that will provide the agency, its partners, and the public with a dataset of certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) manufactured and used in the...more
Macy’s has been ordered to pay $1.6 million for environmental violations across its 98 California stores to settle a lawsuit filed by district attorneys from 25 California counties and two city attorneys. Macy’s “illegally...more
Two years ago the South Coast Air Quality Management District (“SCAQMD”) adopted its Warehouse Indirect Source Rule – Rule 2305. SCAQMD regulates air quality in areas of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardina...more
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected oil companies’ challenge to court orders that currently ban hydraulic fracturing (or fracking)—the injection of high-pressure water and chemicals into the earth to release oil...more
Organic waste collection regulations became effective as of January 1, 2022 for local government jurisdictions in California. Since 2006 California has aggressively pursued establishment of economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG)...more
Rule 2305, a first-of-its-kind air district rule, will impose new costs on warehouses and the Southern California supply chain, potentially testing legal boundaries of local authority to regulate “indirect sources” of...more
California has proposed new statewide vapor intrusion guidance that will make an already aggressive approach to regulation and management even more rigorous. If the guidance in its current form is finalized, it will mean more...more