By: John Sims

A few days after my post about California’s decades-long leadership on efforts to curb air pollution from vehicles, The Sacramento Bee ran an opinion piece on the topic, written by Robert F. Sawyer and Jananne Sharpless, former chairpersons of the California Air Resources Board.  In “Let California lead on clean cars,” the authors describe and argue against a proposal pending before Congress to create a single national standard for vehicle emissions and fuel economy.  Their conclusion is that California “cannot afford to let Washington undermine California’s authority and our states’ rights to protect our communities’ health and our economy.”

My earlier post also provided a link to the December 11 argument in the Ninth Circuit case in which the federal government seeks mandamus to stop the district court in Oregon from going ahead with a February trial on climate change.  It turned out that the linked video portrayed the last appearance on the bench by Judge Alex Kozinski, who retired December 18 after more than 30 years on the Ninth Circuit, after having been charged with sexual harassment.  On December 21, the court assigned Judge Michelle Friedland of California to replace Judge Kozinski on the mandamus case.  There is no way to know yet whether the new composition of the panel will substantially delay the resolution of the mandamus matter.