EPA Refuses to Reconsider its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Findings
As we previously reported, in December of last year, EPA determined that climate change caused by emissions from greenhouse gases endangered the public welfare and the environment. These so-called “endangerment findings,” while not directly imposing requirements on industry or other entities, paved the way for future EPA action to address climate change. In response to EPA’s endangerment findings, 10 petitions were filed urging EPA to reconsider its findings under the Clean Air Act. 
The parties argued, among other things, that the climate science could not be trusted, questioning the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. After months of consideration, in an over 200-page response, EPA denied the petitions, finding that the science to support EPA’s endangerment findings is “robust, voluminous and compelling.” Further legal challenge is most certainly to follow.
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quantifiable GHG thresholds to determine levels of significance in a GHG emissions analysis. A threshold of significance is an identifiable quantitative, qualitative or performance level of an air quality effect used to determine the environmental impacts from a project. This action will lead the way for other regulators in California to control GHG emissions indirectly through the environmental review portion of the project approval process under the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. 
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The events relating to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continue metaphorically to parallel the relationship between the courts and environmental review under 
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That interference could also cost California clean energy businesses income and jobs.
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under the Clean Water Act and strengthens the protection to the small streams and wetlands that make up the 834-square mile Los Angeles River watershed. It also helps ensure the health and safety of those who use the river. While many Angelenos have reason to applaud this designation, it may make it more costly and difficult to develop along the river because developers will have to comply with the Clean Water Act.
Property owners rely on the protection afforded by the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution to shield them against the government improperly interfering with their property rights. The Takings Clause requires “just compensation” to be given to the property owner if the government takes property for public use. For example, if the government takes a person’s land to build a public park, the government must pay him the value of the land. A decision this month by the U.S. Supreme Court adds new uncertainty to that protection by ruling that the property owner must show that the property right allegedly taken was sufficiently “established” under state law.
