Center for Law, Energy & the Environment

The Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) channels the expertise of the Berkeley Law community – faculty, staff, and students – into pragmatic, creative policy solutions to critical environmental and energy challenges.

We are very excited to announce the appointment of CLEE’s new Executive Director: Louise Bedsworth.

Louise joined CLEE last year as Director of the Land Use Program and as a Senior Advisor to the California-China Climate Institute. Before joining CLEE, Louise spent nearly a decade working for the State of California, most recently as the Executive Director of the Strategic Growth Council, and before that as the Deputy Director of the Office of Planning and Research in Governor Jerry Brown’s office. Louise has also held positions at the Public Policy Institute of California, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Redefining Progress, and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.  Louise received a B.S. in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, both from the University of California at Berkeley.

“We had other very strong candidates,” says CLEE Faculty Director Daniel Farber, “but Louise stood out for the range of the strengths that she’ll bring to the job. She has worked at high levels of California government on climate policy and pioneering ways of connecting disadvantaged communities with the policy process.  I’m excited by her vision for CLEE, her passion for our mission, and the deep experience she’ll bring to the Executive Director position.”

Likewise, Louise is excited about taking the helm of an organization that has had a remarkable run of outstanding Executive Directors. “CLEE has a great track record and our staff is tackling critical issues facing California and the rest of the world,” she says. “I am excited to build on CLEE’s strong foundation, advance equity in our work, and strengthen connections across CLEE and the Berkeley campus to advance creative and effective policy solutions.”

We also want to express our gratitude to CLEE’s Director of the Climate Change program, Ethan Elkind, who led CLEE admirably as Interim Executive Director during the transition.

Please join us in welcoming Louise!

May 2022

Driving Equity

To achieve state goals of 40 percent greenhouse gas emission reduction (below 1990 levels) by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2045, California must significantly reduce emissions from transportation, which is the single greatest source of statewide (and national) emissions. In 2020, Governor Newsom issued an executive order calling for a complete phase-out of new fossil fuel vehicle sales by 2035, and in April 2022 the California Air Resources Board proposed an update to its Advanced Clean Cars regulation to achieve that target. However, the majority of electric vehicle models on the road are new, relatively high-cost models and the most ubiquitous and convenient charging options are in the garages of single-family homes in wealthier communities. Our new policy report outlines strategies to promote equity in California’s electric vehicle transition.

May 2022

Branching Out

In response to California’s deadly over the past several years, government and private landowners are removing more debris and residual material from forested areas, such as removing dead trees and creating fire breaks. One strategy to improve vegetation management outcomes is to support markets for this residual material through wood products, chips and mulch, or other end uses. To do so, state and local leaders will need to weigh the consequences of various end uses to ensure human and environmental health factors into decision making and to ensure debris removal does not promote additional cutting of “green” forest material, among other considerations. Our new policy report recommends various pathways for establishing a sustainable market for this material while observing parameters on the source and timeframe of the material collection to ensure activities promote wildfire resilience.

October 2021

Developing Climate Risk Policy for State Procurement and Bond Issuance

California is home to one of the largest economies in the world, and the state plays a direct role in this economy as a steward of assets, a regulator, a revenue generator and service provider, and a direct spender of funds on a range of infrastructure, goods, and services. In light of the risks that climate change poses to state industries and financial institutions, state lawmakers and experts have recently sought to increase knowledge of climate-related risks throughout the state economy. In two new policy notes, CLEE explores potential opportunities to develop climate risk disclosure policy through the lens of state procurement and bond issuance.

July 2021

Piloting a Water Rights Information System for California

California’s complex water management challenges are growing and intensifying. Systemic stressors like the more frequent and severe droughts and floods driven by climate change are only making it harder to respond. Accordingly, California needs to dramatically improve the ability of local, regional, and State entities to make agile and effective water management decisions. We believe doing so will require enhanced understanding of our water resources and how they align with the needs of a range of agencies and stakeholders. Water rights data provide a crucial opportunity for advancing this understanding.

Through a multi-year process of research and engagement, we developed analytical background on how water rights data plays into water management on a broader scale, combined with legal and institutional analysis. Ultimately, we find that a modernized water rights data is feasible, affordable, and can increase clarity for better decision making. Our report, Piloting a Water Rights Information System for California, offers a vision and roadmap for making it a reality.

June 2021

Envisioning Offshore Wind for California

Offshore wind could become an essential piece of California’s renewable energy puzzle while delivering on multiple statewide goals, from tackling climate change and addressing environmental justice to building a just transition and unlocking new economic opportunities. But none of these desirable goals can happen without a robust and far-sighted planning process that includes Californians’ diverse interests. 

CLEE’s new report, Envisioning Offshore Wind for California, provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities. The report suggests priority actions to ensure a comprehensive, strategic approach to this new-to-California industry. It builds from input provided during two workshops from a wide range of participants, including local governments, non-profit organizations, labor representatives, fishermen, renewable energy developers, and more. CLEE convened these workshops with the intent of catalyzing broad and open conversations around OSW and determining potential pathways for future state action.

 

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June 2021

Investing in Nature as a Climate Solution

Some of the most promising, cost-effective climate change solutions are in our own backyards. Trees, plants, soils, and ecosystems like wetlands can store and ultimately bury carbon, helping California and other jurisdictions achieve the “negative emissions” needed to meet long-term carbon neutrality goals. Yet nature-based climate solutions can be difficult to deploy because of various funding and financing barriers, despite the potential for reliable returns for a range of stakeholders. Resource managers and landowners may struggle to connect with the right financing or funding pathways to development. Similarly, investors may lack sufficient information to identify best-fit vehicles and model returns. As a result, despite a rapidly growing understanding of the need to fund nature-based climate and resilience projects, experts have identified a biodiversity funding gap in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

To address these challenges, CLEE and our partners at UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment issued the new report, Seeding Capital.

 

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March 2021

Priorities for Sonoma County’s Wildfire Settlement Vegetation Management Funds

In 2017, the Sonoma Complex Fires burned hundreds of thousands of acres in the county, destroyed over 5,000 structures, and took two dozen lives. After reaching a legal settlement with Pacific Gas & Electric (whose equipment sparked the fires), Sonoma County allocated $25 million of the settlement funds to vegetation management in order to reduce future fire risk and protect ecosystems and agriculture.

 

The County retained CLEE to gather expert input and prepare recommendations for how to allocate these funds most efficiently and effectively. Considering the long-term and recurring nature of vegetation management, the diversity of County landscapes and ecosystems, and the scale of the need relative to the amount of funds, a range of strategies will be required to leverage the funds into long-term investments and ensure sustainable practices. CLEE convened a group of statewide experts and a group of County stakeholders to identify spending priorities. Our report, Priorities for Sonoma County’s Wildfire Settlement Vegetation Management Funds, outlines these priorities and offers specific strategies for the funds to achieve them. 

 

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February 2021

Data Access for a Decarbonized Grid

California’s electricity infrastructure is entering a period of profound change, with state leaders striving to achieve 60 percent renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent zero-carbon power by 2045, while increasingly severe heat waves and wildfires threaten the reliability and resilience of the grid. Developers are introducing a range of flexible grid technologies to meet these challenges. While these technologies are becoming increasingly mainstream and affordable, effective and efficient deployment relies on a key resource—energy data—that can maximize the flexible use of diverse energy resources. Abundant energy data already provide the information needed to operate a modern, flexible grid. However, state regulators, electric utilities, technology developers, and customers face a thicket of regulatory, privacy, and incentive-based challenges to optimizing the generation and management of this data.

 

To identify solutions to these challenges, CLEE and UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment convened a group of energy data experts in August 2020. Our new report, Data Access for a Decarbonized Grid, details the challenges facing optimal energy data access and a set of high-priority solutions.

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January 2021

Building towards Decarbonization

California’s drive toward statewide carbon neutrality by 2045 will hinge on shifting as many energy sources and fuels to electricity as possible. Accordingly, transitioning buildings from natural gas to electricity is among the state’s highest priorities for the coming decade.

 

To identify challenges and solutions to this transition and the high-priority communities in which state leaders should target policy and investment support, CLEE convened a group of building decarbonization experts in September 2020. Our new report, Building toward Decarbonization, highlights a set of criteria for high-priority communities including those with the least financial resources and the most to gain from improved air quality; those currently investing in new building construction; those with existing gas infrastructure already in need of replacement; those with an expressed willingness to transition; and those rebuilding from recent wildfires.

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December 2020

Capturing Opportunity 

California has enacted ambitious climate goals, including a statewide carbon neutrality target by 2045. While much of the required greenhouse gas reductions will come from clean technology and emission reduction programs, meeting these targets will necessitate new methods of actively removing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing difficult-to-mitigate emissions, including via technologies broadly known as engineered carbon removal. These processes — such as carbon capture and sequestration from industrial and fossil fuel facilities, biomass energy production with carbon capture, and direct air capture of atmospheric carbon — can complement nature-based solutions but are mostly still in the early development stages

To address key barriers to engineered carbon removal, CLEE convened a group of state energy and environmental regulators, carbon removal project experts and developers, and advocates to discuss state priorities for engineered carbon removal deployment and policy needs to advance those priorities. Our report, Capturing Opportunity, identifies a suite of high-priority policy solutions.

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December 2020

Redefining Value and Risk in Agriculture

In June 2020, the Berkeley Food Institute and UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment convened farmers, policy experts, advocates, investors, and other stakeholders in the farming community for a virtual roundtable on public-private solutions to advance regenerative agriculture. We agreed on the problem, yet our diverse perspectives necessitated discussion of the broad range of potential and existing solutions. From reforming crop insurance and promoting regenerative practices to implementing policies that prioritize equity, explore these recommendations and more in Redefining Value and Risk in Agriculture. 

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