Center for Law, Energy & the Environment

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

August 2017

Plugging Away: How to Boost Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

California will need widespread consumer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in order to achieve the state’s environmental and energy goals. But achieving these goals will require a significant boost to EV charging infrastructure, particularly in workplaces, multi-unit dwellings, and fast charge “plazas.”

Because charging station installation and maintenance typically entails high costs, with often uncertain revenues, policy action will be required. Our newly released report explores policy solutions to address this challenge.

June 2017

New Report: Can Local Groundwater Markets Help Groundwater Basins Achieve Sustainability?

California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) opens the door for local groundwater markets, but questions remain about when a local groundwater market might be a useful and appropriate management tool.

Our new report, Trading Sustainably: Critical Considerations for Local Groundwater Markets Under SGMA, outlines a set of considerations designed to help decision makers and stakeholders evaluate whether a local groundwater market might be a viable tool for sustainably managing their groundwater basins and, if so, how to effectively implement it.

June 2017

Planning for Utility-Scale Solar PV in the San Joaquin Valley: What Does the Future Hold?

CLEE co-hosted a a panel with the Environmental Law Institute and Farella Braun + Martel to discuss how stakeholders and policy makers can ensure that future solar PV deployment occurs only in “least-conflict” (land on which solar development is least likely to engender objections and possibly litigation) lands in the San Joaquin Valley region and beyond. Panelists discussed some of the findings from last year’s influential CLEE report, A Path Forward: Identifying Least-Conflict Solar PV Development in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

May 2017

Environmental & Energy Law Certificates Ceremony

Students, faculty, staff and the broader Environmental and Energy law community joined us to celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates and award Certificates of Specialization in Environmental and Energy & Clean Technology Law. We thanks everyone who attended and helped to make this such a special annual event.

Photos from this event can be found here.

April 2017

We’ve won the Imagine H20 California Water Policy Challenge

CLEE, and our partners at Water and Power Law Group PC, have won the 2017 Imagine H20 Water Policy challenge for our modern water rights database proposal.

Effective administration of California water resources requires a water rights database that includes all water rights and their terms, a system that doesn’t yet exist. We will now be undertaking a pilot project to push forward this effort for a searchable database that supports managements decisions and fosters sustainability.

The water rights database is complementary to other work we are conducting on water data.

March 2017

Real Estate Choices Help California Meet Climate Goals and Grow Local Economies

Our new report Right Type, Right Place: Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impacts of Infill Residential Development through 2030 finds that encouraging new housing development in infill areas would spur economic growth, reduce monthly housing costs, and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

A collaboration with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley and commissioned by Next 10, this is the first comprehensive academic study of its kind.