Conservation science has substantial capacity to analyze a range of risks to species. We identify an additional form of risk for biodiversity: The risk that legal protections may be scaled back or repealed as a result of political changes. We demonstrate the importance of "political extinction risk" through an analysis of the implications of a partial repeal of the federal Endangered Species Act, removing protections for species on private lands. Such a repeal reduces protections for all species from hunting by over one-third, and from habitat modification by over 40%. Loss of protections vary significantly by species, across states, and by taxonomic group. In particular, more charismatic taxonomic groups generally have higher levels of protection relative to less charismatic groups. Our results highlight the importance of political risks for conservation.

Despite the devastating impact climate change will have on biodiversity, most legal scholars and policymakers are skeptical that the flagship statute for protecting biodiversity in the United States, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), should be deployed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This skepticism has been driven by the concern that using the ESA to regulate greenhouse gases could lead to administrative issues, legal chaos, and political backlash that might endanger the Act overall. In this article, I draw on three different elements to argue that the ESA could plausibly be used to regulate greenhouse gases. Specifically, I draw on recent scientific developments that help attribute impacts on biodiversity to climate change; on a common tool in environmental regulation, the general permit; and on key elements of tort law that allow for the division of liability among various actors. Together, these elements mark out a pathway by which the ESA can be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and potentially produce significant funds to pay for the protection of at least some species that are threatened by climate change. I propose developing a general permit system under the ESA that would regulate large sources of greenhouse gas emissions. This system would charge a fee per unit of greenhouse gases emitted that would compensate for the proportional harm that each unit of emissions causes to species threatened by climate change. In turn, those funds can be used to facilitate conservation efforts for species that are protected under the ESA and threatened by climate change. I provide a thorough examination of how such a system would be consistent with the ESA and the implementing regulations and agency guidance documents, how it would work in practice for individual species or emitters, and how likely such a program would be to withstand judicial review. The proposal has implications beyond the ESA. It helps identify the ways in which creative regulatory approaches, such as general permits, can facilitate the adaptation of existing environmental laws, like the ESA, to the current-day context of climate change. Given the increasing impacts of climate change and the difficulties of enacting substantial revisions to environmental laws at the federal level, such creativity will be essential for a range of policy areas.

Research correlating stringency in land-use regulation to low housing supply, high housing costs, and segregation relies on surveys of planners about land-use regulation. Housing policy reform proposals rely on much of this same research. We assess the reliability and validity of questions from three surveys using objective data on land-use regulation and its application. Response errors indicate that planners systematically underestimate the stringency effects of local regulation while overestimating the impact of state law. This signals potential bias that may skew some analysis. Scholars should account for this potential bias when analyzing survey data to inform land-use policy debates.

As the largest polity worldwide to legalize cannabis, California has implemented uniquely high environmental and land use standards for cannabis agriculture. To date, however, regulations have suffered from low compliance rates, especially among smaller, "legacy" farms that existed prior to legalization. Meanwhile, both licensed and unlicensed farms are increasing in size, thus increasing environmental pressures. Is there a way to achieve environmental objectives, farmer compliance, and an equitable transition away from illegal markets? In the largest US survey of cannabis farmers to date, we found farmers are open to strong environmental protections yet face significant barriers in meeting regulatory requirements. We present this opinion article to suggest several strategies to ameliorate compliance barriers by reducing associated learning, financial, and psychological costs. Taken together, these strategies present an unprecedented opportunity to model a new kind of agriculture centered on small-farm production and environmental stewardship-a model that indicates new directions for agriculture beyond cannabis.

This report details findings and analysis from a study titled Local Regulation of Cannabis in California. This study examines how jurisdictions approve commercial outdoor and mixed-light cannabis cultivation projects and details entitlement and cannabis permitting processes. This study analyzes how enforceable climate policies operate in relationship to the approval of commercial outdoor and mixed-light cannabis cultivation projects in eleven counties and the timeline and process for approved projects.

From the first days of the United States, the story of sovereignty has not been one of a simple division between the federal government and the states of the Union. Then, as today, American Indian tribes persisted as self-governing peoples with ongoing and important political relationships with the United States. And then, as today, there was debate about the proper legal characterization of those relationships. The United States Supreme Court confronted that debate in McGirt v. Oklahoma when, in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, it held that the reservation of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation "persists today." The Court's recognition of the persistence of Tribal sovereignty triggered a flurry of critical commentary, including from federal lawmakers who share Justice Gorsuch's commitment to originalism. But the early history of federal Indian law supports the persistence of tribal sovereignty. Through its treaty practice and opinions of its Supreme Court, the United States recognized Indian tribes as political communities whose pre-constitutional sovereignty persisted despite their incorporation within U.S. territory. According to the Marshall Court, tribes were "nations" with whom the United States had entered into treaties. The terms "treaty" and "nation," the Court explained in Worcester v. Georgia, had "well-understood meaning[s]" under the law of nations and applied to tribes as they applied "to the other nations of the earth." This Article explores the meaning of those terms as they applied to Indian tribes through the first comprehensive analysis of the international law commentary cited by the Marshall Court as well as historical examples of shared sovereignty that were familiar to lawyers during the early Republic. In particular, this Article explores two consequences of tribes' status as "states" and "nations" during the early Republic. First, it provides an international law foundation for the Indian canon of construction's rule that tribal sovereignty is preserved unless expressly surrendered. Like states under international law, tribes retained whatever measure of sovereignty they did not expressly surrender by agreement. Accordingly, a court interpreting an Indian treaty must construe ambiguous terms to retain tribal sovereignty. Today, this rule of interpretation is known as the Indian canon of construction and is thought to be peculiar to federal Indian law. To the contrary, however, the Indian canon's foundations include generally accepted principles of the law of nations at the time of the Founding. Second, this understanding of Indian tribes implies that the sovereignty of tribes is not divested by their incorporation within the United States as dependent sovereigns and persists despite periods in which federal and state governments have prevented its exercise. This principle not only justifies the Court's recognition of tribal persistence in McGirt, but also has important implications for contemporary debates in federal Indian law.

Conservation BiologyVolume 36, Issue 6 e13983 DIVERSITY Lessons for conservation from beneath the pavement Alexis M. Mychajliw, Corresponding Author Alexis M. Mychajliw amychajliw@middlebury.edu orcid.org/0000-0003-4801-7496 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this authorElizabeth R. Ellwood, Corresponding Author Elizabeth R. Ellwood ellwoodlibby@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0003-1602-1917 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA iDigBio, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this authorPeter S. Alagona, Peter S. Alagona orcid.org/0000-0002-1030-0029 Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorR. Scott Anderson, R. Scott Anderson orcid.org/0000-0002-7037-4150 School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USASearch for more papers by this authorMairin A. Balisi, Mairin A. Balisi orcid.org/0000-0001-6633-1222 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, California, USA Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, The Webb Schools, Claremont, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorEric Biber, Eric Biber School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJustin L. Brown, Justin L. Brown National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Thousand Oaks, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJessie George, Jessie George orcid.org/0000-0002-6518-6235 Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorAustin J. W. Hendy, Austin J. W. Hendy orcid.org/0000-0002-9818-1158 Department of Invertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorLila Higgins, Lila Higgins orcid.org/0000-0001-8903-8619 Community Science Program, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorCourtney A. Hofman, Courtney A. Hofman orcid.org/0000-0002-6808-3370 Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology & Microbiome Research, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USASearch for more papers by this authorAshley Leger, Ashley Leger orcid.org/0000-0002-3414-2918 Cogstone Resource Management, Orange, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorMiguel A. Ordeñana, Miguel A. Ordeñana Community Science Program, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorGregory B. Pauly, Gregory B. Pauly orcid.org/0000-0002-2381-2576 Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Herpetology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorBreanna J. Putman, Breanna J. Putman orcid.org/0000-0002-1079-5519 Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Biology, California State University, San Bernardino, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJohn M. Randall, John M. Randall orcid.org/0000-0003-2254-0385 The Nature Conservancy, California Chapter, San Diego, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorSeth P. D. Riley, Seth P. D. Riley National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Thousand Oaks, California, USA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorAllison J. Shultz, Allison J. Shultz orcid.org/0000-0002-2089-4086 Department of Ornithology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorM. Allison Stegner, M. Allison Stegner orcid.org/0000-0002-1412-8203 Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University, California, USA Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorThomas A. Wake, Thomas A. Wake orcid.org/0000-0001-8001-5058 The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorEmily L. Lindsey, Corresponding Author Emily L. Lindsey elindsey@tarpits.org orcid.org/0000-0003-0845-8545 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this author Alexis M. Mychajliw, Corresponding Author Alexis M. Mychajliw amychajliw@middlebury.edu orcid.org/0000-0003-4801-7496 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this authorElizabeth R. Ellwood, Corresponding Author Elizabeth R. Ellwood ellwoodlibby@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0003-1602-1917 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA iDigBio, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this authorPeter S. Alagona, Peter S. Alagona orcid.org/0000-0002-1030-0029 Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorR. Scott Anderson, R. Scott Anderson orcid.org/0000-0002-7037-4150 School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USASearch for more papers by this authorMairin A. Balisi, Mairin A. Balisi orcid.org/0000-0001-6633-1222 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, California, USA Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, The Webb Schools, Claremont, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorEric Biber, Eric Biber School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJustin L. Brown, Justin L. Brown National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Thousand Oaks, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJessie George, Jessie George orcid.org/0000-0002-6518-6235 Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorAustin J. W. Hendy, Austin J. W. Hendy orcid.org/0000-0002-9818-1158 Department of Invertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorLila Higgins, Lila Higgins orcid.org/0000-0001-8903-8619 Community Science Program, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorCourtney A. Hofman, Courtney A. Hofman orcid.org/0000-0002-6808-3370 Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology & Microbiome Research, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USASearch for more papers by this authorAshley Leger, Ashley Leger orcid.org/0000-0002-3414-2918 Cogstone Resource Management, Orange, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorMiguel A. Ordeñana, Miguel A. Ordeñana Community Science Program, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorGregory B. Pauly, Gregory B. Pauly orcid.org/0000-0002-2381-2576 Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Herpetology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorBreanna J. Putman, Breanna J. Putman orcid.org/0000-0002-1079-5519 Urban Nature Research Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Biology, California State University, San Bernardino, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorJohn M. Randall, John M. Randall orcid.org/0000-0003-2254-0385 The Nature Conservancy, California Chapter, San Diego, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorSeth P. D. Riley, Seth P. D. Riley National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Thousand Oaks, California, USA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorAllison J. Shultz, Allison J. Shultz orcid.org/0000-0002-2089-4086 Department of Ornithology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorM. Allison Stegner, M. Allison Stegner orcid.org/0000-0002-1412-8203 Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University, California, USA Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorThomas A. Wake, Thomas A. Wake orcid.org/0000-0001-8001-5058 The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorEmily L. Lindsey, Corresponding Author Emily L. Lindsey elindsey@tarpits.org orcid.org/0000-0003-0845-8545 La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA Correspondence Alexis M. Mychajliw, Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, Middlebury College, 374 McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA. Email: amychajliw@middlebury.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 September 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13983 Alexis M. Mychajliw and Elizabeth R. Ellwood contributed equally to this work. Article impact statement: : Integrating deep-time records in urban ecology can reframe conservation goals in cities—the places where most people live. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume36, Issue6December 2022e13983 RelatedInformation

Cannabis legalization is spreading rapidly. In California, as the plant transitions from an illegal drug to agri-cultural product, regulations have been implemented to manage its production and associated environmental impacts. Yet, at the early stages of this process, many of the state's cannabis farmers continue to operate illicitly. This study examines why some cannabis farmers are engaging in the state's licensing initiative while others are not. Through an anonymous survey of cannabis farmers in California, we analyzed socio-normative and cost-related factors influencing farmers' decisions to participate in legal markets, or not. Approximately one third of the 362 cannabis farmers who completed the survey reported that they had never applied for a license. These non-compliant farmers were likely to be smaller cultivators who grew cannabis as part of a diversified livelihood strategy. Farmers' non-compliance was primarily attributed to an inability to overcome barriers to participation. These included not only financial barriers but also administrative and psychological ones, all of which dispro-portionately affect farmers with fewer resources. Socio-normative factors, including pressure from neighbors and perspectives on the benefits of environmental regulations, were not found to motivate non-compliance. As a result, policy efforts to mitigate the administrative burdens of compliance, such as streamlining permitting processes, extending agricultural support services, and supporting farmer collectives, warrant further attention to enhance compliance, public safety, environmental outcomes, and rural development in cannabis cultivating communities. Reforms to promote compliance, particularly among smaller farmers, may prevent the kinds of industrial consolidation seen in agricultural and in other governmental efforts to regulate informal resource use and trade.

Housing costs in major coastal metropolitan areas nationwide have skyrocketed, impacting people, the economy, and the environment. Land-use regulation, controlled primarily at the local leve, plays a major role in determining housing production. In response to this mounting housing crisis, scholars, policymakers, and commentators are debating whether greater state involvement in local land-use decisionmaking is the best path forward. We argue here that there are good reasons to believe that continuing on the current path—with local control of land-use regulation as it is—will lead to persistent underproduction of housing. The benefits of housing production are parimarily regional, including improved job markets, increased socioeconomic mobility, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. But the costs associated with producing more housing are often local, felt at the neighborhood level. Local governments whose voters are impacted by the local negative impacts of housing and will usually have less incentive to consider those regional, and national, benefits and approve housing. Recent political science, planning, economics, and legal research shows that smaller local jurisdictions tend to produce less housing, and that when political institutions decentralize control over housing to the sublocal (e.g., neighborhood) scale, less housing is approved. A central theory in academic research in land-use regulation and local government law has been the idea that competition among highly fragmented local governments can produce more efficient outcomes in public services and land-use regulation, even if there may be significant inequities across local jurisdictions in outcomes. Our analysis shows that this theory no longer accurately describes how fragmented local governance affects economic efficiency. Indeed, our analysis makes clear that fragmented local governance is both inequitable and inefficient, at least in the context of land-use regulation. Our analysis also raises questions about local government law scholarship contending that increased local governmental power can effectively address the dysfunctions of metropolitan areas in the United States. We present a range of policy proposals to address the problems we identify. First, greater state intervention in local land-use regulation is necessary. While that greater state role need not (and probably should not) entirely displace local control, it is essential to ensure that the larger-scale benefits of housing are appropriately considered. Second, we note that the highly fragmented local land-use regulatory system imposes challenges for housing production, in part, because variation among local regulatory practices creates barriers to entry for new housing across jurisdictions. Accordingly, we advocate for a state role to increase the standardization of local land-use regulatory tools as a key step to help advance greater housing production, even where local control is maintained.

California has endured devastating fire seasons over the past few years, with billions of dollars of damages, thousands of homes lost, and dozens dead. A key driver of the state's fire crisis is the increase in development of housing in the wildland-urban interface, where ecosystems and landscapes are more likely to burn. Wildland-urban interface development can put people and property in harm's way and can increase the risk of ignitions of fires. Wildland-urban interface development can also make it harder to restore fire to the landscape, a critical step to reducing fire hazards in California. But current law in California appears to do little to deter development in these high fire hazard areas. Direct regulation of land-use is generally undertaken by local governments that may have incentives to allow greater wildland-urban interface development. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires review and mitigation of the environmental impacts of new development projects, may not provide an adequate response to wildland-urban interface development. In particular, a recent California Supreme Court case limited the scope of CEQA review to the impacts caused by a project on the environment, rather than the impacts of the environment on a project-much of the potential harm posed by fire to wildland-urban interface development falls in the latter category. To understand how well CEQA is addressing wildland-urban interface development, we analyzed data on environmental review for housing projects in three large exurban counties and additional cities with substantial wildland-urban interface areas. We found that in San Diego County, significant amounts of development are being approved using streamlined CEQA review processes, and that most of the housing development in the County is occurring in the wildland-urban interface. Our results indicate that CEQA and local land-use regulation may not be adequately addressing wildland-urban interface development in California. However, any policy response must also recognize the dire housing shortage in the state. Balancing the goals of reducing fire risk and increasing housing production suggests that increased housing development in low fire hazard urban infill areas, and a regional-level planning structure to properly plan for fire hazards, may be appropriate policy responses.

Negative emission strategies are central to avoiding catastrophic climate change. Engineered solutions such as direct air capture are far from cost-competitive. As past low-carbon technology transitions suggest, this calls for policy and political strategies beyond carbon pricing. We adopt a policy sequencing perspective that identifies policies that could create niche markets, building political support for later widespread deployment of direct air capture. Climate leaders could pursue an "incentives + mandates" policy strategy targeted at the oil and gas industry. These early moves could create global spillovers for follower countries by reducing technology cost and facilitating knowledge transfer through global firms.

The cannabis industry in California is attempting to transition from an international epicenter of unpermitted production to one of the world’s largest legal markets. This formalization process will likely establish new centers of production outside the state’s historical cannabis-producing regions, with implications for local communities and the environment. In this paper we analyzed how cultivation regulations and land characteristics correlate with the geographical development of permitted cannabis production centers in California. We used permit data from the first two years of California’s statewide cannabis regulatory program to document geographic variation in cannabis production and farm characteristics (prevalence of onsite residence, non-landowner farming, county zoning classifications, size of cultivation area). We also used multilevel regression models to analyze whether geospatial characteristics likely to be relevant to environmental regulations (size of parcel, average slope of parcel, density of stream network, land cover type) were associated with farm size (cultivation area) or the likelihood of a parcel being enrolled in the state program. We found that a small number of large farms represented the majority of the permitted cultivation area, with the top 10% of largest farms comprising 60% of total cultivated area statewide. The counties with the most growth in permitted cannabis cultivation area also had the highest rates of tenant (non-landowner) farming and lowest proportions of farms with permanent onsite residency. Farms in these counties were almost exclusively sited on parcels zoned for agriculture. On a statewide scale, parcel size was a reliably positive predictor of enrollment, while average slope and stream network density had reliably negative effects. The same relationships held in predicting cultivation area, together suggesting that the development of the newly-formalized cannabis industry in California may be responsive to environmental regulation. Our results suggest two divergent paths of industry development: one in which smaller farms, which often pre-date legalization, navigate regulations in more remote and rugged regions and a second comprising large farms, which are often newer and operate in areas more favorable to meeting environmental requirements of state and county policies.

This essay is written for city officials and their allies trying to figure out whether they can use California’s baroque “housing element” planning process to mitigate local barriers to housing supply. Every eight years, cities across the state must adopt a plan, called a housing element, for their share of regionally needed housing. Though it has traditionally been an opaque, consultant-driven process, the housing element update offers real opportunities for overcoming the usual pathologies of municipal land-use politics. First, it provides city councils with an occasion, and a mechanism, to switch from piecemeal policymaking to negotiation of citywide deals on a package of rezoning and constraint-removal reforms. This is so because the “fundamental, mandatory and clear” provisions of a housing element preempt municipal ordinances to the contrary, and because amendments to the housing element must be submitted to the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for pre-implementation review. Second, the housing element law offers a powerful antidote to status-quo bias: cities that fail to adopt a substantially compliant plan on schedule forfeit the authority to apply their zoning code to affordable housing projects. This gives anti-housing interests an incentive to compromise on the housing element. Third, conscientious city officials can alleviate local barriers to housing supply by improving the flow of information to the state agency that reviews housing elements and certifies them for compliance.

Starting in the 1970s, the West Coast states coalesced around roughly similar responses to the problem of excessive local restrictions on housing supply. Local governments were charged with making plans to accommodate needed housing, subject to review and approval by a state agency. In California, a city’s housing plan must also analyze, mitigate, and remove “constraints” to the development of housing in general. This component of the plan has received little attention, and, according to a recent report of the State Auditor, it hasn’t accomplished much. We argue that it could accomplish a lot more—if the state housing agency develops practical strategies for dealing with information asymmetries (the agency’s limited knowledge of local regulatory practice) and the substitutability of constraints (knock out one, and another can be deployed in its place). Our response to these challenges runs on two principal tracks. First, we recommend that the housing agency rebuttably presume that local governments in expensive areas have substantial regulatory constraints if their rank by housing price (rent) exceeds their rank by rate of housing production. These local governments would be expected to provide regulatory accommodations when actors with better information about constraints—namely, developers—show that sites which the local government has represented as available for development are impractical to develop at their nominal capacity. This is a way for the state to achieve mitigation of constraints even when it’s very hard for the oversight agency to see or evaluate them.Second, to pinpoint sources of constraint and assess compliance with applicable benchmarks, we propose that housing agency establish several new reporting and analytical requirements. The cumulative effect of local constraints should be assessed by simulating the entitlement of “prototype projects” on a random sample of parcels. Local governments also should be required to upload standardized, geocoded zoning layers and parcel characteristics; to track and report legally salient milestones for actual development applications; and to complete a questionnaire about certain types of constraints which the other approaches are likely to miss. A workable framework for constraints review and mitigation could reduce the stakes of the state’s “housing need” determinations, and provide a model for other states seeking to liberalize the supply of housing in expensive, high-opportunity metro regions.

Every year, the four federal agencies that manage designated wilderness in the United States receive proposals to implement small‐ and large‐scale ecological restorations within the National Wilderness Preservation System. The combination of climate change with other landscape stressors is driving ecological restoration to be one of the single most important, challenging, and potentially litigious wilderness stewardship issues. In addition, different stakeholders may have strongly divergent views about what the right decision should be, and decisions need to go beyond routine technical and scientific analyses to incorporate a broader range of legal and ethical considerations. We present a framework based on a comprehensive, structured set of scientific, legal, and ethical questions to guide the evaluation of proposals for ecological restoration and other types of ecological intervention in wilderness. This framework of questions is a voluntary tool designed to increase communication and transparency among scientists, managers, and interested publics regarding the trade‐offs and uncertainties of ecological restoration, and promote informed public deliberation in managing the public resource of wilderness.

California has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to address climate change. But in California, the sector that produces the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation, and reducing those emissions depends on reducing total vehicle miles traveled (VMT). And that, in turn requires rebuilding urban and suburban areas in California to become less car-centered and more oriented around mass-transit and walkable neighborhoods: transit-oriented infill development (TOD). Critiques of the transition from sprawl to TOD raise concerns that TOD is pushing low-income communities out of our urban core and into to exurban areas. A key question is the role of local versus state control over land use in addressing the dual challenges of climate change and the state’s housing crisis. To address this debate, we built a first-of-its-kind data set that examines entitlement, or the local approval process to obtain a building permit, in relationship to present day zoning as well as historical discriminatory land use policy. We find that local government choices about zoning reflect past racial discrimination around land use, directing dense TOD almost entirely into neighborhoods that were subject to those discriminatory practices.