Insurance Law and Wildfire
Providing a federal backstop for wildfire insurance in return for state and local reforms
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the sixth in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. The fifth post is here. Insurance markets to protect homeowners against fire risks are teetering across the country, though particularly ...
CONTINUE READINGConsumer Clean-Energy Sovereignty
Consumers seem to be voting with their wallets for clean energy.
The Rhodium consulting firm has issued its quarterly report on energy trends. The basic picture isn’t bad. The headline news isn’t bad: in the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, “clean energy and transportation investment in the United States totaled $75 billion, a 22% increase from Q1 2026 and a 4% jump from Q2 2025.” Considering Trump’s effort to summon all the power of the federal government to destroy clean energy, that’s not bad. What seemed most surprising ...
CONTINUE READINGLand-Use Law and Wildfire
Creating incentives for local and state governments to manage development in high-risk areas
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the fifth in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. Any successful effort to address fire in the United States must address land-use. Development in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), wher...
CONTINUE READINGWildfire and Air Quality Law
Reforming how the Clean Air Act handles smoke from wildfires
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the fourth in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The core of the Clean Air Act is a set of national ambient air quality standards that set minimum levels of air quality needed to protect human health. States must...
CONTINUE READINGWildfire and National Forests
Reforming federal forest management to address wildfire
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the third in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. The second post is here. Federally managed Forest Service lands comprise about 30% of all US forests, disproportionately in the western United States, where fire issues have been particularly severe. Federal land ...
CONTINUE READINGEl Niño is Coming. Californians Still Need Better Tools to Recover from Disaster.
AB 2385 would have helped local governments prepare for disaster recovery, but the bill failed to make it out of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Last week, AB 2385 (Petrie-Norris) died in the California Senate Appropriations Committee. Its demise is the latest frustration in the long saga to rebuild from the terrible January 2025 Los Angeles fires—and to apply some lessons learned about disaster recovery in the process. I’ve had a front row seat, as both an Angeleno and a co-leader of the UCLA research team that supported the Blue Ribbon Commission convened by County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath to offer rec...
CONTINUE READINGA Mile High Solution To Housing Affordability?
Want to expand the availability of deed-restricted affordable units? Build market-rate ones!
One of the most dispiriting debates in housing policy and land use concerns the relative merits of deed-restricted affordable versus market-rate housing. YIMBY advocates argue building more market-rate units will eventual filter down and expand affordability; many on the Left argue that market-rate housing reduces the availability of land for deed-restricted affordable units. Eunisses Hernandez ran a successful Los Angeles City Council campaign opposing all market-ra...
CONTINUE READINGThe Challenges of Wildfire
Why wildfire management is so difficult to reform
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. This is the second in a series of blog posts on our proposal to reform wildfire law in the United States. The first post is here. Why is fire such a hard problem to solve? Understanding the answers to that question helped us develop proposals to improve fire policy in the United States. First, fire is dynamic. Fire behavior is hard to pred...
CONTINUE READINGTroubled Waters
We’re seeing increasing signs of a malfunctioning US water system.
Water problems are popping up all over. Literally so, in at least one case. In the Permian basin, geysers of toxic wastewater are erupting. The water was pumped underground as part of the basin’s massive fracking operations. Fracking produces five or six barrels of wastewater for every barrel of oil. High pressure underground is pushing wastewater into oil and gas basins as well as threatening drinking water aquifers. That's starting to happen in Ohio, too, which has b...
CONTINUE READINGFixing Wildfire Law
The urgent challenge of reforming how we manage wildfire
This blog post was co-authored with Dave Owen, at UC Law SF. The draft article this blog post series is based is here. Every year brings another reminder of why fire is at the top of environmental and natural resource issues for the United States, and how our legal system struggles to adjust to fire. The recent fires that destroyed hundreds of homes in Spokane, Washington are just the most recent example. The core problem is that fire does not just present a sing...
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
The Drain is a roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet delivered to your Inbox once a week.
