Environmental Policy & Law

Part of the value of clinic participation is learning how to advocate for a real-life client, as opposed to the hypothetical clients law students deal with in their legal writing courses. But often, clients deviate significantly from our expectations, writes Fellow Candice Youngblood. And while classes on discrimination get us fired up to champion for justice, they cannot flesh out every way justice can manifest for real-life communities.

Fellow Candice Youngblood published a Note in UC Berkeley's Ecology Law Quarterly journal that seeks to paint a picture of what working toward environmental justice should look like.

In cities around the country, if you want to understand the history of a neighborhood, you might want to do the same thing you'd do to measure human health: Check its temperature. That's what a group of researchers did, and they found that neighborhoods with higher temperatures were often the same ones subjected to discriminatory, race-based housing practices nearly a century ago.

The United States needs to look beyond the current administration’s climate obstructionism, write S. David Freeman and Switzer Fellow John S. Berger. We must start considering laws now that ultimately outlaw fossil fuels. Otherwise, America will be unprepared to take bold meaningful climate action in 2021.

Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker Friday tapped a diverse crew of grassroots activists — including a working families legislative leader, an immigrant rights champion, and a school parents organizer — to guide his transition and chart a policy course for the next two years. Elicker introduced the co-chairs and two dozen other members of his newly formed transition team, at a press conference held at his campaign headquarters at 161 Whalley Ave.

The goal of American Bird Conservancy's project under this Switzer Network Innovation grant was to develop a comprehensive community engagement strategy that would enable a fair and transparent consideration of a biotechnology approach to addressing the threat of avian malaria in Hawai'i. Hawai'i has an extremely high rate of extinction for birds, and introduced mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit are a leading threat.

Permitting of linear oil and gas pipeline projects involves complex processes undertaken by a range of parties that are each working to address specific regulatory goals and requirements. In recent years, the growth of the natural gas industry has expanded pipeline development into states unaccustomed to pipeline permitting and has increased the number of permits necessitating review by states and tribes. While this growth is a critical economic driver, it comes with challenges.

Through this Switzer Leadership Grant, Lauren Richter contributed as a key member of the Silent Spring Institute PFAS research team. PFAS are a class of extremely persistent synthetic chemicals common in nonstick, stain-resistant, and waterproof consumer products and widely found in drinking water of millions of Americans. Lauren led community workshops on PFAS at regional and national conferences, investigated the public costs of PFAS drinking water contamination on Cape Cod, and provided expert testimony at hearings on PFAS bills before state legislative committees in Rhode Island.

Dr. Katalyn (Kate) Voss, who grew up as an active member of the Surfrider Foundation in southern California, has always been interested in grass-roots organization and advocacy around environmental issues. Now as an AGU Congressional Sciece Fellow, Voss is excited to have arrived at the nexus of science, society and politics. “Maybe this is the geographer in me coming out,” says Voss, “since we’re trained to think across scales of space and time, I see this coming year working on the Hill as a perfect convergence of all these different spatial scales of policy and science.”