By Matt Carlisle, Vermont Law School
​This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Please post any comments on the original, which can be found here.

I. Introduction:
 
Storm water is a major polluter. As one judge put it, “Storm water runoff is one of the most significant sources of water pollution in the nation, at times ‘comparable to, if not greater than, contamination from industrial and sewage sources.’”[1] Storm water “runoff may contain or mobilize high levels of contaminants, such as sediment, suspended solids, nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen), heavy metals and other toxic pollutants, pathogens, toxins, oxygen-demanding substances (organic material), and floatables.”[2] When it storms or rains, “storm water runoff carries these pollutants into nearby streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, and oceans.”[3] This creates an immediate and dire need to regulate effluent from polluting storm water systems.
 
Municipal storm water regulation has and is continuing to become a regulatory farce. Sloppy legislative language and short cited court rulings have dulled the tools necessary to curb polluted effluent from contaminating municipal storm water. Due to the legislative carelessness and misguided case law, municipal storm water regulation is treated as almost exempt from the Clean Water Act (CWA) because municipal storm water is not required to strictly comply with water quality standards. This paper proceeds as follows. In part one, the discussion will focus on the regulatory mechanisms of industrial and municipal storm water. Part two will discuss the judicial interpretations of industrial and municipal storm water. Part three discusses the counter arguments to the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Defenders. Finally, part four concludes with the common sense interpretation of municipal storm water regulation.​

By Garrett Lenahan, UCLA School of Law, JD Candidate 2017
This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Please post any comments on the original, which can be found here.

I. Scoping Plan Background
 
            Two prominent pieces of Californian legislation that seek to address climate change are Assembly Bill 32 ("AB 32") and Senate Bill 32 ("SB 32"). AB 32 required California to reduce its greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. It tasked the Air Resources Board with creating a Scoping Plan for reaching those levels. The original scoping plan contained a range of programs that would reduce GHG emissions from cars, trucks, fuels, industry, and electricity generation. SB 32 now requires the Air Resources Board to ensure that statewide GHG emissions are reduced to 40 percent below the 1990 level by 2030. The proposed Scoping Plan Update builds on the programs from the original Scoping Plan under AB 32 and includes some new ones.[1] Programs under the Proposed Scoping Plan include the Cap and Trade Regulation, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the Renewable Portfolio Standard, the Sustainable Community Strategies, the Sustainable Freight Action Plan, and the Mobile Source Strategy, among others.
 
            The proposed Scoping Plan Update is comprehensive and commendable. However, it does lead to a few potential questions and issues. This paper will address two potential concerns regarding the transportation sector in particular. The transportation sector emits the most greenhouse gases of any economic sector in the state, so it is vital to reaching the SB 32 goal.[2] The first concern is whether the new administration under President Trump will revoke California's waiver to regulate tailpipe emissions and how that affects the Scoping Plan. The second issue about the Scoping Plan is whether California will be able to install adequate infrastructure across the state to accommodate the increased number of zero emission vehicles.