Santa Clara University has selected a new Dean for the Law School – Lisa Kloppenberg.

http://law.scu.edu/news/pr/santa-clara-university-school-of-law-names-lisa-kloppenberg-as-dean.cfm

Her term starts July 1, 2013.  Welcome!

In the past few weeks, we’ve had some of China’s leading public interest lawyers pay visits to Santa Clara University. 

At the beginning of March, Prof. Wang Canfa of the China University of Political Science and Law paid us a visit.  In addition to his academic position, Prof. Wang is also the director of the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV).  

Prof. Wang is both one of the leading legal scholars in China on the environment as well as arguably the most important legal advocate in that country working on the environment.  In 2007, Time Magazine hailed him as an environmental hero. Much of his reputation derives from his work through the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, which he founded and still directs.  The Center litigates cases on behalf of pollution victims and has been remarkably (and uniquely) successful in recovering compensation for his clients.  In addition, his Center also engages in environmental law training for lawyers and judges. 

While at SCU, Prof. Wang met with Dean Polden and gave a guest lecture in an undergraduate environmental studies course about his work with CLAPV.  He was also accompanied by Professor Zhu Xiaoqin from Xiamen University Law School who is currently a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Law School.   I ended up taking both of them to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we got a wonderful tour from Dr. George Matsumoto, a scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 

The other Chinese lawyer we had at SCU recently was Mr. Chen Guangcheng, the blind “barefoot lawyer” who created a diplomatic stand-off last spring in seeking refuge at the US Embassy.  And this all happened while Secretary Clinton was in Beijing for the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. 

 
Chen was at Santa Clara University to receive the Law School’s Catherine and George Alexander Prize, where he gave nice acceptance speech to a packed audience.  Chen was introduced by SCU President Father Engh.  NYU Law Professor Jerry Cohen, probably the best known American law professor focused on Chinese law issues, provided valuable background on Mr. Chen’s past. 

(From left to right:  Dean Don Polden, SCU President Father Engh, Cheng Guangcheng, Chen’s wife (Yuan Weijing))

I ended up on the Santa Clara welcoming committee for Chen, his wife Weijing, and two young children – fancy description of me, Prof. Cynthia Mertens (SCU Law’s Academic Dean), and law student Nathan picking them up at SFO to bring them to their hotel on the preceding Friday.  Interestingly, there were many people (especially Chinese) at the airport  who recognized Chen and expressed their support for his work.  I personally was struck by how unassuming he and his wife were even though they have gone through a tremendous personal ordeal in China and have gotten quite a bit of attention from the media.  But it was an honor for Santa Clara to have them come to our campus.  I understand from him that he is working on a book(in English), which should be out later this fall.

Effective April 21, 2013, Randy Hill has been appointed by Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe to join EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board.  Randy is currently the Acting Director of the Office of Waste Water Management under EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water (Nancy Stoner).  He’ll be a terrific addition to the EAB with his amazing resume of experiences as a senior manager in EPA’s major components, the Office of Water, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, and the General Counsel Office.  I am personally excited about his new role as he has been a friend and colleague for many years (since my Justice Department days), and I know him as an experienced, thoughtful, smart, and capable lawyer.  He’ll be joining the current set of EAB judges, Kathie Stein, Catherine McCabe, and Leslye Fraser.

The EAB is an internal administrative tribunal that allows regulated entities to seek review of administrative decisions, including permits and administrative enforcement actions, by various parts of the Agency.  As the delegatee of the Administrator’s final authority on such matters, its decisions are theoreticallystill subject to the review (and reversal)  of the Administrator.  However, as a practical matter, as far as I know, that has never happened in its 20-something year history.  Thus, the EAB’s decisions are the Agency’s final word on such issues, before they might be the subject of judicial review. 

Some have described the EAB as a type of environmental court/tribunal similar to environmental courts in other countries even though it is not part of the judiciary unlike the environmental court division in Vermont’s state court system, for example.  For additional background on the EAB, see Anna Wolgast, Katie Stein, and Timothy Epp, The United States Environmental Adjudication Tribunal, Journal of Court Innovation, vol. 3, no. 1, winter 2010; and Nancy Firestone, The Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board, Environmental Law, vol. 1, no. 1 (1994-95).

Xinhua, the Chinese government’s official news outlet, noted that the National People’s Congress, at the end of its annual session today, endorsed the new line-up of China’s Central Government ministers.    Turns out that the new Minister is also the old one — Zhou Shengxian, who has led China’s MEP since 2005.  (He had been re-nominated as part of the new set of ministers by new Premier Li Keqiang.)  For purposes of continued US-China (MEP-US EPA) environmental cooperation, that should be welcome news, since he and former Administrator Lisa Jackson had a positive and strong relationship.  However, Zhou is currently just shy of 64 and will be required to leave his post when he reaches the mandatory retirement age in a few years.

As many already know, Dean Don Polden is stepping down from his position at the end of this academic year.  Here’s the Dean Search announcement.

Santa Clara University
Dean, School of Law
Santa Clara University School of Law invites nominations, applications, and inquiries for the position of Dean.

JOB DESCRIPTION: Santa Clara University seeks an energetic, strategic leader to serve as the next Dean of its School of Law. For the past century, the School has dedicated itself to providing students with a rigorous education that inspires, transforms, and helps build a better, more just world. Through its prolific faculty, robust clinical programs, broad range of summer programs abroad, and extraordinarily diverse student body, the School of Law cultivates practice-ready lawyers who can represent clients effectively and ethically in an increasingly complex legal environment. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the School has garnered a strong national reputation for its Centers in High Tech Law, Global Law and Policy, and Social Justice and Public Service. The successful candidate will embrace and pursue the School’s distinctive mission within a Jesuit University, will guide and support the development of high-quality academic programs, and will creatively lead the School’s fundraising initiatives.

To review the full position description, please visit: http://scl.ekornferry.com

APPLICATION PROCEDURE: The confidential review of applications, nominations, and expressions of interest will begin immediately. The starting date for the position is July 1, 2013. Applications and nominations are encouraged by February 21, 2013, though the search will remain open until the position is filled. Candidates should submit a letter of application summarizing their qualifications, and how those qualifications speak to the needs of the position, as well as a curriculum vitae to:

Korn/Ferry International
c/o John F. Amer, Esq.
1900 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 2600
Los Angeles, California 90067

Electronic applications are preferred. Please e-mail documents to John F. Amer at: scl@kornferry.com

Santa Clara University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer committed to excellence through diversity and, in this spirit, particularly welcomes applications from persons of color and members of historically underrepresented groups. On request, the University will provide reasonable accommodations in the application process to individuals with disabilities.

In his inauguration speech earlier, the President devoted part of his remarks to climate change.  I wonder whether this will portend a change in the priority that the White House will put on this issue.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from the speech transcript:

I guess this was not unexpected, given the rumors and reports by the Washington Post.  This is rather sad. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-head-jackson-to-resign-post/2012/12/27/50637f50-4fda-11e2-8b49-64675006147f_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/science/earth/lisa-p-jackson-of-epa-to-step-down.html?hp&_r=0

Here’s an excerpt from the NY Times story on her resignation, which encapsulates some of the challenges she have faced during her time:

“After Republicans seized control of the House in 2010, Ms. Jackson became a favored target of the new Republican majority’s aversion to what it termed “job-killing regulations.” One coal industry official accused her of waging “regulatory jihad,” and she was summoned to testify before hostile House committees dozens of times in 2011. She was frequently subjected to harsh questioning that at times bordered on the disrespectful.
Ms. Jackson, the first African-American to head the E.P.A., brushed off that treatment as part of the territory and a reflection of the new partisan reality in Washington. More difficult for her was the lack of support she received at times from environmental groups, who saw every compromise as a betrayal, and from the White House, which was trying to balance worries about the economy and the president’s re-election campaign against the perceived costs of tough environmental policies.”

Here’s a link to my Doha climate ope-ed piece on CNN.com, just out today:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/26/opinion/yang-climate-change/index.html?hpt=op_t1

Happy Holidays to all.

For links to the leaked Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCCC, posted by the leaker himself, climate skeptic Alec Rawls, see here:  http://stopgreensuicide.com/

UCLA’s Cara Horowitz posted a blog entry on Berkeley’s Legal Planet a few days ago, just as the news of the leaked report had broken, together with a link to the IPCC response is at:  http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/lastest-ipcc-assessment-of-future-climate-changes-leaked-in-draft-form/

At that time, the IPCC press office also sent out the response by email to a listserv that I am on.  Here’s the text:

Dear Climate – L readers
The Second Order Draft of the Working Group I contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (WGI AR5) has been made available online. The IPCC regrets his unauthorized posting which interferes with the process of assessment and review. We will continue not to comment on the contents of draft reports, as they are works in progress.

The Expert and Government Review of the WGI AR5 was held for an 8-week period ending on 30 November 2012. A total of 31,422 comments was submitted by 800 experts and 26 governments on the Second Order Draft of the Chapters and the First Order Draft of the Summary for Policymakers and Technical Summary. The author teams together with the Review Editors are now considering these comments and will meet at the Working Group I Fourth Lead Author Meeting on 13-19 January 2013 in Hobart, Tasmania, to respond to all the comments received during the Expert and Government Review.

The IPCC is committed to an open and transparent process that delivers a robust assessment. That is why IPCC reports go through multiple rounds of review and the Working Groups encourage reviews from as broad a range of experts as possible, based on a self-declaration of expertise. All comments submitted in the review period are considered by the authors in preparing the next draft and a response is made to every comment. After a report is finalized, all drafts submitted for formal review, the review comments, and the responses by authors to the comments are made available on the IPCC and Working Group websites along with the final report. These procedures were decided by the IPCC’s member governments.

The unauthorized and premature posting of the drafts of the WGI AR5, which are works in progress, may lead to confusion because the text will necessarily change in some respects once all the review comments have been addressed. It should also be noted that the cut-off date for peer-reviewed published literature to be included and assessed in the final draft lies in the future (15 March 2013). The text that has been posted is thus not the final report.

This is why the IPCC drafts are not made public before the final document is approved. These drafts were provided in confidence to reviewers and are not for distribution. It is regrettable that one out of many hundreds of reviewers broke the terms of the review and posted the drafts of the WGI AR5. Each page of the draft makes it clear that drafts are not to be cited, quoted or distributed and we would ask for this to continue to be respected.

For more information:
IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int
Jonathan Lynn, + 41 22 730 8066 or Werani Zabula, + 41 22 730 8120

___________________________________________________________________________________