I grew up in the L.A. area and am a die-hard Dodgers and UCLA Bruins fan. My wife, Lynn, is a sculptor and painter. We have two grown daughters who we’d like to call us more often. I also play guitar and bass in a klezmer band.
Posted April 15, 2013 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Living Sustainably
I'm in Washington D.C. preparing for tomorrow's Supreme Court argument in the ATA v. City of Los Angeles port trucking case. While here, I've taken in two ballgames at the Washington Nationals' park, a very comfortable venue to watch baseball. ...continued→
Posted January 16, 2013 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The San Fernando Valley, now the home of more than 1.75 million people, is a 260 square mile basin northwest of downtown Los Angeles. In the 1930s and 40s, the Valley was plagued by floods from the Los Angeles and...continued→
Posted January 15, 2013 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, U.S. Law and Policy
There is a growing debate over whether and how to “modernize” California’s bedrock environmental review law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Industry critics say that the law generates too much litigation, restricting growth in the state. Along with my...continued→
Posted December 18, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Greening China
In early December of 2012 I attended the Better Air Quality conference in Hong Kong along with my colleagues Barbara Finamore and Rich Kassel. I had never been to Hong Kong before and wound up cutting a wide swath through...continued→
Posted December 14, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice
We have long known that many people die from air pollution. What is surprising is how high the public health toll is and that it is largely preventable. A new study in The Lancet, developed by an international group of...continued→
Posted August 9, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice
There are proposals to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) now floating around Sacramento, based on the idea that CEQA litigation is flooding the courts and impeding good development projects. So my colleagues and I decided to look at...continued→
Posted June 21, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Moving Beyond Oil
I've been a litigator my entire career. I love trial court work. Few things are more fun during a trial than cross-examining an expert witness who is making things up. I was thinking about this Tuesday during an industry-sponsored conference...continued→
Posted June 19, 2012 by David Pettit in Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Today’s post is co-authored with my colleague Jamie Friedland. If we don’t learn from our catastrophic oil spills, we are doomed to repeat them. That’s why on Monday, NRDC and a coalition of conservation groups filed a lawsuit pressing the...continued→
Posted May 22, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
Sports/entertainment company AEG has proposed to build a new football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. The stadium, if built, will be in an ideal location for accessibility by public transit and will create thousands of good jobs. NRDC supported the...continued→
Posted April 23, 2012 by David Pettit in Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming
Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the injunction against California's low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) that was issued by the trial court in late 2011. This decision means that California is able to enforce the rule that’s on...continued→
Posted April 18, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil, Reviving the World's Oceans
It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since the worst environmental disaster in US history: the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill that claimed the lives of 11 drilling rig workers and polluted the Gulf of Mexico, Texas,...continued→
Posted April 9, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, Greening China
Was that Paladin (Richard Boone) down at the stables? Marshal Dillon (James Arness) over at the saloon? Lanzhou is in Gansu Province in China's Wild West, a two-hour plane ride from Beijing. Last week I spent five days there giving...continued→
Posted March 6, 2012 by David Pettit in Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, U.S. Law and Policy
There was a partial settlement last week in the case against BP and others arising from the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout in April, 2010. The settlement was between BP and the class of business owners and others who were injured...continued→
Posted February 13, 2012 by David Pettit in Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil
Rumors are flying that the feds and BP are about to announce a deal on what damages BP will pay for the April, 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. I have zero inside information on what the settlement terms...continued→
Posted January 19, 2012 by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution, U.S. Law and Policy
The process to implement California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard has had an interesting month. In mid-December we achieved a great victory when California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously agreed to move forward with implementation of the low emission fuel standard...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
