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ALLEN MATKINS - Sep 17 The California Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District recently issued its long-awaited decision in Environmental Law Foundation vs. State Water Resources Control Board, confirming the expansive scope of California's public trust doctrine. The court ruled for the first time that the doctrine applies to the extraction of groundwater if the extraction will adversely impact a navigable waterway. The court also concluded that the enactment of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 did not displace the agency's common law duty to consider public trust interests before allowing groundwater extractions that could potentially harm a navigable waterway.
SACRAMENTO BEE - Sep 18 The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) on Tuesday rolled back an Obama-era rule that required energy companies to capture methane during oil and gas drilling on U.S. and tribal lands. Methane is a key contributor to climate change that is released in large amounts during drilling operations. Within hours of the announcement, attorneys general for California and New Mexico filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to reinstate the 2016 rule. The Obama-era rule has been tied up in the courts since its adoption; it was put on hold in April 2018 by a federal judge in Wyoming. DOI's rescission of the methane waste rule could save companies as much as $2 billion in compliance costs over the next decade. A U.S. Bureau of Land Management analysis said that reductions of as many as 180,000 tons per year of emissions of the greenhouse gas, which had been projected to occur under the 2016 rule, will be lost with Tuesday's change.
REUTERS - Sep 18 Bayer AG unit Monsanto on Tuesday filed motions asking San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanoto to set aside a $289 million jury verdict awarded to a man who alleged the company’s glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, gave him cancer. The company, which denies the allegations, has previously said it would appeal the verdict if necessary. Johnson’s case was the first to go to trial over allegations that glyphosate causes cancer. Monsanto is facing some 8,000 similar lawsuits across the United States. A hearing on the motions is set for October 10.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Sep 14 Governor Jerry Brown last Friday announced that California will move forward with plans to launch its own satellite to monitor climate change sources, a symbolic move that comes as President Trump threatens to limit the climate work of NASA. The satellite observations, according to Brown’s staff, would be used to create a Climate Data Partnership that will be made available for use by anyone studying climate variables in the Earth’s atmosphere, including governments, businesses and independent scientists. Planet Labs, which NASA scientists founded in 2010, will run the project with oversight from the California Air Resources Board.
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE - Sep 20 San Diego County Judge Timothy Taylor last Friday issued a stay on the approval of projects in unincorporated San Diego County until at least the end of 2018 if the proposed projects rely on rules that allow developers to offset greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits for emissions reductions that will occur outside the county. Large proposed developments, such as Newland Sierra, Lilac Hills Ranch, and Warner Ranch, could be affected by the ruling, though the Newland Sierra hearing before the Board of Supervisors remains scheduled for September 26. The court's ruling was in response to a complaint filed by the Sierra Club and the Golden Door Spa, a luxury spa located across from the Newland Sierra project site, contending the county’s Climate Action Plan mandates environmental offsets be made locally, not globally.
