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February 24, 2015

Argument analysis: Review of consular visa decisions for the twenty-first century

Cross-posted from SCOTUSblog.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the much-anticipated immigration case of Kerry v. Din. In that case, the U.S. government - in the face of strong academic commentary to the contrary - steadfastly defends the doctrine of consular non-reviewability and its bar to the judicial review of visa decisions of Department of State consular officers.

A consular officer had denied the visa application of Kaniska Berashk, a citizen of Afghanistan and the spouse of Fauzia Din, a U.S. citizen. The consular officer's denial merely cited the broad definition of terrorist activities in the immigration statute. Din sought judicial review of her husband's visa denial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed her that review and found that the consular officer's explanation of the visa denial was insufficient.

Office of the Solicitor General veteran Ed Kneedler argued the case for the United States. Relying heavily on much-criticized Cold War cases of Knauff v. Shaughnessy and Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei and frequently invoking the need to protect the national security, Kneedler argued that the U.S. government has the undisputed power to exclude aliens from the United States and that "[o]ur position is that there is no judicial review" in the case of the denials of immigrant visas by consular officers. Kneedler later elaborated: "This Court has said on a number of cases that when it comes to the exclusion of aliens, whatever process Congress provides is the process is due." At one point in the argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pressed Kneedler into conceding that the U.S. government's position was that there is no exception to the consular non-reviewability doctrine. Jarred by the government's absolutist approach, Justice Stephen Breyer asked whether a consular official could, for example, deny a visa for racially discriminatory reasons or because he thought husbands and wives should not live together. The answer apparently was "yes."

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Breyer and Ginsburg seemed sympathetic to Din's case. Among other things, these Justices feared possible erroneous denials of visas with no opportunity for correction through judicial review. Justice Sotomayor characterized the administrative process after the denial of a visa to a spouse as an "administrative nightmare."

Justices Sotomayor and Breyer (and to a certain extent Justices Anthony Kennedy and Justice Samuel Alito) were also troubled by the possibility of uncorrected mistakes by the government. When Kneedler assured the Court that the decisions were double-checked before denying a visa, Justice Sotomayor countered that "that's what we were told after September 11th," noting that the government had claimed that it had good reason for arresting and detaining foreigners, only to later admit that some alleged terrorists had been "erroneously identified."

The Justices generally seemed sensitive to the possible national security concerns at stake. A number of questions focused on the practicalities of judicial review if the government claimed that disclosure of the basis for the visa denial might jeopardize national security. (The U.S. government did not make this argument in Din's case.). One of the possibilities mentioned would be for in camera review by the judge.

At various times in the argument, the Justices asked questions about how Kleindienst v. Mandel applies to the case at hand. In that case, the Court ruled that a court could review the claim of a group of U.S. citizens who asserted that the exclusion of a Marxist journalist violated their First Amendment right to hear him speak. The Court found that the basis offered - that the applicant had violated the terms of visas on previous visits to the United States - was a "facially legitimate and bona fide reason" for the executive action. Justice Kennedy, the possible swing vote in the case, seemed to agree with Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan that, under Mandel, Din has the right to demand an explanation for the visa denial.

Kneedler attempted to distinguish Mandel as involving a different decision than a visa denial. As a back-up argument, he claimed that a citation to the statute was sufficient to satisfy the deferential requirement of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the visa denial.

Mark Haddad of Sidley Austin LLP argued the case on behalf of Fauzia Din. While appropriately conceding that Congress has broad authority over immigration, he urged the Court to affirm the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that Mandel required a further explanation of the visa denial.

Much of the Justices’ questioning of Haddad focused on the scope of Din’s constitutional rights. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Alito worried about the prospect that the right to contest immigrant visa denials would be extended to relatives. They seemed wary of encouraging spouses and other family members to seek judicial review when their relatives are barred from entering the United States.

In this vein, several of the Justices raised the question whether, if the Court ruled in Din’s favor, a wife might hypothetically be able to challenge a criminal conviction even if her husband for whatever reason did not want to do so. However, if permitted by the case law, that issue could be addressed by allowing the visa applicant himself to seek judicial review. In this case, the decision was made to pursue judicial review based on an opening left by Mandel allowing a U.S. citizen to challenge the denial.

Another practical concern of some of the Justices was whether there might be a flood of appeals of visa denials if the Court were to allow judicial review of consular officer decisions. That relatively few cases have been appealed under Mandel, and in the Ninth Circuit where some kind of judicial review is currently permitted, suggests that there would not be a flood of appeals if the Court decided in Din’s favor.

Although always hazardous to predict a decision in a case based on the oral argument, it seems to me that the Justices are closely divided on this case. As frequently is the case with the Roberts Court, Justice Kennedy will perhaps determine the precise outcome.

Based on the argument, my prediction is that the Court will embrace the deferential Kleindienst v. Mandel framework. However, it is far from certain whether the Court will find that the denial in this case satisfied the facially legitimate and bona fide requirement.

February 18, 2015

Argument preview: The doctrine of consular non-reviewability – historical relic or good law?

Cross-posted from SCOTUSblog.

The well-established doctrine of consular non-reviewability precludes judicial review of the visa decisions of State Department consular officers. It is a first cousin of immigration law's exceptional "plenary power" doctrine, which generally immunizes from judicial review the substantive immigration decisions of Congress and the executive branch. In refusing to disturb the federal government's reliance on secret evidence to deny the non-citizen spouse of a U.S. citizen admission into the country, the Supreme Court in 1950 summarized the plenary power doctrine as follows: "[w]hatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned."

More recently, the Court has creatively avoided invoking the plenary power doctrine and instead ensured judicial review of immigration decisions. For example, in Landon v. Plasencia, the Court held that a lawful permanent resident seeking to return to the United States after a weekend in Mexico possessed a due process right to a hearing on the propriety of her exclusion from the country.

The courts, including the Supreme Court, have created a number of exceptions to the doctrine of consular non-reviewability. In Kleindienst v. Mandel, the Court ruled that a court could review the claim of a group of U.S. citizens who asserted that the exclusion of a Marxist journalist violated their First Amendment right to hear him speak. The Court found that the basis offered - that the applicant had violated the terms of visas on previous visits to the United States - was a "facially legitimate and bona fide reason" for the executive action.

Next Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Kerry v. Din, a case that provides it with the opportunity to provide much-needed guidance on judicial review of consular officer visa decisions. It also could offer some hints about the future of the plenary power doctrine.

Facts

The facts of the case could have been ripped out of the cable television series Homeland.

In 2006, Fauzia Din, a naturalized U.S. citizen, married Kanishka Berashk, a citizen of Afghanistan. A consular officer at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan denied Berashk's visa application. The denial simply cited a detailed, complex, and broad provision of the immigration law that bars the admission into the United States of non-citizens who have engaged in "terrorist activity." The consular officer failed to identify the alleged conduct that triggered the exclusion.

The district court dismissed Din's suit challenging her husband's visa denial. The Ninth Circuit reversed. A majority concluded that (1) "a citizen has a protected liberty interest in marriage that entitles the citizen to review of the denial of a spouse's visa"; (2) the reason offered for the denial was not "facially legitimate"; and (3) the consular officer should have explained "what [he] believed [Berashk to have] done" that justified the visa denial.

Arguments in the briefs

Relying heavily on plenary power precedent, the Solicitor General argues that Din lacks a constitutionally protected interest in her husband's visa application and that the Ninth Circuit erred in finding that she has a right to judicial review of his visa denial. The government seeks to limit Kleindienst v. Mandel to its facts and further contends that the State Department should not be required to offer a specific explanation in denying a visa on national security grounds.   The government specifically contends that judicial review à la Mandel will have "the steep cost of weakening the protections that keep terrorists from our shores."

This case is one of the few occasions in which the Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to deny judicial review of an immigration decision. Indeed, in recent years it has refused to defend two lower-court decisions - including one accepted for review this Term holding that the immigration statute barred judicial review of a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling.

Din emphasizes that, like the plaintiffs in Mandel, she is a U.S. citizen challenging the visa denial and a violation of her rights, rather than an alien on foreign soil seeking initial entry into the country. She claims (1) a constitutional right to marry and live with one's spouse; (2) that the denial of her spouse's visa infringed that right; and (3) that due process requires that the government provide a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the denial.

Several groups filed amicus briefs, all in support of Din. In one brief, a number of former consular officers argue in favor of judicial review on the ground that many contemporary visa denials are not discretionary judgments, as was historically the case, but are instead based on whether the person appears on various database and other watchlists. And in another brief, seventy-three law professors question the conventional understanding of foundational cases of the doctrine of consular non-reviewability. They contend that Kleindienst v. Mandel requires judicial review and that such review is consistent with the immigration statute.

Analysis  

The Court in this case has the opportunity to narrow the doctrine of consular non-reviewability. Besides the possible doctrinal effects of a decision - including further limitations on the doctrine - the case has the potential for great practical significance. Consular officers stationed in U.S. embassies around the world annually deny hundreds of visa applications. The specific judicial review question is complicated in the case before the Court by the consular officer's blunt invocation of terrorism as the basis for denial of the visa application.

The ultimate outcome largely depends on how the Court applies Kleindienst v. Mandel. Given its contemporary inclination toward some modicum of judicial review of immigration decisions, the Court might be expected to find that judicial review of visa denials - even if limited in scope - is justified. But how limited should the scope be? Should courts accept the U.S. government's mere citation to the terrorist activity provision of the immigration law without any explanation, even if that would effectively deny an applicant a meaningful opportunity to rebut the charge? Or should the courts require further explanation from the government - for example, in this case, how and why the consular officer found Berashk inadmissible. How the Court resolves this issue may be the key to the case.

February 13, 2015

Just How Lawless Are the Alabama State Court Judges Who Have Been Refusing to Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses?

Cross-posted from Justia's Verdict.

This week offered quite the spectacle in Alabama. Relying on a recent ruling from United States District Court Judge Callie Granade, based in Mobile, that struck down the provision in the Alabama state constitution that prohibits recognition of same-sex marriage, many gay and lesbian couples around the state began getting marriage licenses. But other same-sex couples, mainly in more conservative counties, have been unable to obtain licenses because some state probate judges (who issue marriage licenses in that state) are continuing to abide by the state-law ban on same-sex marriage, notwithstanding Judge Granade's ruling that such discrimination violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution. And on Monday Judge Granade herself declined requests to hold probate judges who refused to issue same-sex licenses in contempt of her federal court and its orders. Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, has been issuing statements about the limits of federal power that remind many observers of the days of George Wallace, and maybe even Jefferson Davis. So what is going on here? And do the state court judges who are continuing to enforce Alabama's discriminatory marriage-license regime have a legal leg to stand on? In the space below, I try to separate the strands of the tangle, and to highlight which legal questions have clear answers and which don't.

Let us first take the easy question of whether Justice Moore's broad-based challenge to federal judicial authority holds up. It does not. Justice Moore has said that the federal courts have no authority over the state-law institution of marriage and that federal district judges cannot require state judges to follow federal trial court rulings. These ambitious sentiments are certainly wrong if they are taken to mean that a federal court cannot award meaningful relief to plaintiffs who successfully challenge the application of state law to them. Federal district courts can vindicate the federal rights of federal plaintiffs, even if those rights involve the institution of marriage, and even if it is state judges (as is the case in Alabama's regime) who issue the marriage licenses that are being wrongfully and unequally withheld. So a federal district court has undeniable power to order state officials, including state judges, to provide victorious federal plaintiffs a remedy to redress their constitutional violations. Such power to adjudicate and vindicate federal rights is emphatically what federal courts are for. That's Constitutional Law I/Marbury v. Madison-kind of stuff.

The Limits on Federal District Court Remedial Reach

Why, then, did District Court Judge Granade not hold state court judges in contempt for withholding marriage licenses? After all, contempt of court-with its coercive sanctions-is usually what we invoke to ensure that people comply with federal court orders. (I should point out here that individuals who violate federal court orders are generally punishable for contempt even when the federal court orders themselves go too far and are later determined to be illegal.) The answer is that the formal remedy provided by Judge Granade-the technical order she issued after finding the Alabama same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional-did not, as she herself understood it, extend to all probate judges who interact with all same-sex couples throughout the state. While Judge Granade could and should hold in contempt any state official who refuses to recognize the marriage of the particular same-sex couple who brought the case in her court and won, Judge Granade was likely correct not to try to punish probate judges for withholding relief as to other same-sex couples.

The reason for this is that the weight of authority tends to suggest-as a leading casebook puts things-that "a [federal district] court can enjoin [a] defendant only with respect to the defendant's treatment of plaintiffs actually before the court, either individually or as part of a certified class" (emphasis added). Because there was no class certified in the case before Judge Granade-it was brought by one same-sex couple-Judge Granade's remedial authority is technically limited to the particular plaintiffs before her. Thus, even if her legal reasoning invalidating Alabama's same-sex marriage ban is valid-and even if it is likely that her interpretation of the federal Constitution will be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court later this year-state court judges who continue to enforce the state-law ban as to other couples are likely not defying federal authority in a way that can be punished.

This also means that, as a technical matter, the problem (if one views remedial limitations as a problem, though many would view them as a virtue that makes federal judicial power less scary) won't necessarily be solved by trying to name every probate judge in Alabama as a party to a case in Judge Granade's docket. If a federal judge cannot order state judges to provide relief to anyone other than the federal plaintiffs before her, then same-sex couples throughout the state will not all necessarily benefit by extending Judge Granade's orders to cover additional defendants in additional cases involving additional named couples; the remedial limitation is defined by the identity of the plaintiffs, not the identity of the defendants.

So when Judge Granade yesterday afternoon ruled, in a second case, that one probate judge who had been refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses must begin issuing them, her order was still limited to the particular plaintiffs (four same-sex couples) who were in her court asking for relief. As Judge Granade wrote yesterday: "If Plaintiffs take all steps that are required in the normal course of business as a prerequisite to issuing a marriage license to opposite-sex couples, Judge Davis may not deny them a license on the ground that Plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or by any other Alabama law or Order pertaining to same-sex marriage" (emphasis added).

Now it may well be that as more and more probate judges are instructed to issue licenses to named plaintiffs in more and more cases, all of the probate judges in the state will start issuing licenses to all same-sex couples who apply, regardless of whether those couples are victorious plaintiffs in any federal case. But that will not be because the state court judges are under a federal court order that obliges them to do so, but because they choose to do so in light of the decisional trend.

I should note that the conventional rule that I describe here-that a federal trial court's relief should normally be granted only to the actual plaintiffs in the case-does not forbid the court, even outside of a class action setting, from ordering relief that in fact goes beyond protecting the named plaintiffs and also protects other would-be plaintiffs, if full relief cannot be given to the named plaintiffs without also necessarily regulating the defendants' interactions with other persons. (For example, in one case, a court was justified in ordering the police to stop enforcing a motorcycle helmet law overly aggressively as to all riders-and not just as to the plaintiffs-because highway patrol officers would have no way of distinguishing plaintiffs from non-plaintiffs before pulling someone over.) But in the present setting, full relief (i.e., marriage licenses and recognition) can be given to named plaintiffs without ordering the defendants to give licenses to anyone else.

Some have argued that providing full relief to named same-sex plaintiff couples requires allowing all same-sex couples in the state to marry, because absent such broad access to same-sex marriage, the named plaintiffs' marriages would continue to be subject to stigma. But I don't think that this stigma argument works, because if it did, then same-sex couples whose marriages are already recognized would have standing to challenge bans on same-sex marriage that are preventing others from marrying, and I don't think any federal court would recognize standing in such circumstances.

I should also point out that some federal judges believe that a district court can order government agencies to refrain from enforcing facially invalid laws or policies against anyone, and not just the plaintiffs before it. (Judge Granade's orders up until this point-limited as they are to the actual plaintiffs before her-give no indication that she is among them.) For example, (now-retired) United States District Court Judge Vaughn Walker (in San Francisco) is reported to have embraced this view when he issued an order whose plain language directed state officials to stop enforcing California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, against all same-sex couples, and not just the two couples who sued in his court. Judge Walker's apparent position-which was never fully tested because both the Governor and Attorney General of California chose not to try to continue enforcing Proposition 8-was in (unexplained) tension with current Ninth Circuit law, which embraces the more dominant view, described above, to the effect that the remedy must ordinarily be tailored to the plaintiffs only. The Ninth Circuit approach is supported by most (but not all) of the statements the Supreme Court has made on the topic, but candor compels the acknowledgement that the law in this area is not really settled and could definitely benefit from high Court attention and clarification.

Does Restricting a Federal District Court's Reach to the Plaintiffs Before it Make Sense?

Why might it be sensible for a federal district court judge not to be able to issue relief to anyone other than the plaintiffs in the case before it? Because, under the judicial system we have chosen, we have decided that federal district court opinions and decisions should, as a matter of governing precedent, have no binding effect on any other judges, even other federal judges located within the same district. This situation is to be contrasted with a ruling by the regional federal Court of Appeals or the United States Supreme Court. Once either of those courts has held Alabama's law invalid (and neither has yet-the Supreme Court chose not to block Judge Granade's ruling, but it won't decide the merits of the same-sex marriage constitutional question until later this year, at the earliest), then all judges, state and federal, within the state should surely obey that ruling, because the federal appellate court (whether it is the Eleventh Circuit or the Supreme Court) would have fashioned federal law that is supreme and applicable throughout the state. This is true even though state judges' rulings are not appealable to the Eleventh Circuit, insofar as all federal district judges in the circuit (who are bound by circuit precedent) would have no choice but to give injunctive relief to any same-sex couple who subsequently filed suit. Under those circumstances, it would be an utter waste of time (and perhaps a due process violation) for a state court judge not to give a license to someone who undeniably could get one by filing a federal suit anywhere in the state. Whether contempt sanctions are applicable or not, no judge or other state official would be justified in continuing to enforce a state law that a federal appellate court governing that state has held to be invalid.

But a ruling by a district court judge like Judge Granade has no such effect. Just because she ruled that Alabama's law violates the federal Constitution does not mean that other federal judges in Alabama would so rule if other same-sex couples filed suit in their courts. Her ruling is not binding precedent on them. Importantly, not all same-sex couples could properly sue in Judge Granade's district, and even if they did, other district court judges in that district to whom a new case might be assigned might rule differently on Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage. So Judge Granade's ruling-unlike one from the Eleventh Circuit or the Supreme Court-does not inevitably provide relief to any would-be federal-plaintiff same-sex couple in the state.

Perhaps an example will help drive home the point I'm making. Imagine that public universities throughout Alabama, pursuant to a state law policy, take race of applicants into account in a measured way in the admissions process, in order to assemble a diverse student body. Suppose a single unsuccessful applicant to a single public college in the state sues in federal court, bringing a facial challenge to the state's affirmative action policy on the ground that any use of race violates the Fourteenth Amendment. And suppose the district judge in that case rules (wrongly, to my mind, but not implausibly as a prediction of where the Supreme Court is headed) that all consideration of race is indeed barred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Could that judge apply her ruling to all the public universities in the state, and order all of the them (under pain of contempt) to refrain from considering race at all as they process the hundreds of of thousands of applications they receive each year, even though many other federal and state judges in the state would disagree with her interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment but might never have a chance to hear a case if her ruling were allowed to shut down statewide use of the policy? I think such remedial power by a single judge would raise many problems, and for that reason, if and when the Court clarifies district court remedial power, it might embrace what I have described here as the mildly dominant view limiting remedial authority to actual plaintiffs.

But, a reader might wonder, isn't there a difference between the affirmative-action hypothetical I posit and the same-sex marriage setting insofar as affirmative-action limitations at the high Court are still a matter of debate, while there is no longer any real doubt about whether the Supreme Court this summer will hold that all state-law discrimination against same-sex couples in the marriage arena is unconstitutional? Perhaps this prediction is quite sound, and state court judges would be justified if they chose to issue licenses on that basis, but I am not entirely sure that state court judges are required, as a matter of supreme federal law, to act on it now. All judges have a legal obligation to follow binding precedent from a higher court once it is handed down, but there may be no legal obligation-enforceable by contempt or otherwise-on lower court judges to see the writing on the wall.

February 11, 2015

Celebrating Four Decades of Energy Innovation: The California Energy Commission at 40

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of California's landmark Warren-Alquist Act, which created the state Energy Commission and triggered a transformation of energy policy in California, across the U.S., and abroad.

This week an impressive group of energy policymakers, political leaders, energy scholars and Energy Commission alumni gathered at events in Sacramento and at the U.C. Davis School of Law, to commemorate the first four decades of the Commission's important work and-even more importantly-to chart California's energy policy in the years ahead.  There, dignitaries including California Governor Jerry Brown, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chairman R.K. Packauri and the co-author of the 1974 Warren-Alquist Act reminisced about the launch of the Energy Commission in January 1975 and challenged the Commission to continue its energy leadership through the coming decades.

As Governor Brown and former Assemblyman Charles Warren noted, the seeds of the transformative Warren-Alquist Act sprouted in the early 1970's, when California's private utilities were experiencing 7-9% annual growth in state electricity demand.  The utilities projected that some 60-70 new, 1000 megawatt nuclear power plants would be required to accommodate that demand, which they forecast would double every 10 years.  An influential report by the Rand Corporation, published contemporaneously, confirmed the utilities' projected growth rate, but presciently observed that it would only occur under a "business as usual" scenario.  Other energy futures, the report opined, were possible.

Then history and international conflict intervened.

In the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Middle East oil producing nations created an oil embargo that quickly made U.S. citizens and their political leaders realize how dependent the American economy had become on imported oil.  America faced severe energy shortages for the first time since World War II, which consumers experienced first hand in the form of long lines at gas stations, severe shortages of home heating oil, etc.

In California, then-Governor Ronald Reagan, the California Legislature and state utilities quickly realized that the state needed to update its energy policies to respond to long-term energy growth projections and immediate energy shortages.  The utilities hopes for legislation that would provide for a "one-stop" siting process for its planned, new power plants by preempting traditional local control over such development projects, in favor of a centralized permitting agency at the state level.

In hindsight, the utilities should have been careful what they wished for.  The Legislature passed the Warren-Alquist Act in 1974, which gave the utilities the permit streamlining process for which they had lobbied.  But the legislators who passed the Act also were influenced by the findings of the Rand Report and the repercussions of the Arab Oil Embargo.  Critically, the new legislation incorporated three other key provisions-designed to address the demand side of the energy equation-which in hindsight have proved far more influential than the law's siting reform:

  • It directed the newly-created Commission to formulate and adopt the nation's (and planet's) first-ever energy conservation standards for both buildings constructed and appliances sold in California;
  • The Act removed the responsibility of electricity demand forecasting from the utilities, which had a financial interest in high demand projections, and transferred it to a more impartial Commission;
  • The Commission was directed to embark upon an ambitious research and development program, with a particular focus on fostering non-conventional energy sources;

The Energy Commission, headed by appointees of newly-elected California Governor Jerry Brown, quickly got to work.

Fast forward 40 years.  The performance of the Energy Commission in implementing the Warren-Alquist Act has been impressive indeed.  The Commission's record was recounted in detail at today's "California Energy Commission 40th Anniversary Symposium," hosted and co-sponsored by U.C. Davis' California Environmental Law and Policy Center: while U.S. per capita energy demand has increased by 50% over the past four decades, California's growth rate has remained flat.  California's first-ever energy conservation standards for appliances and buildings have been replicated by the federal government and many other nations across the globe.  And the research and development programs launched by the Commission made California the hub of renewable energy technology innovation.

Even if the Commission were content to rest on its laurels (it's not), new energy challenges and initiatives lie ahead.  Governor Brown announced them in his fourth inaugural address and his State of the State speech, both held earlier this month.  Brown reiterated those goals in this week's events commemorating the Warren-Alquist Act and the Energy Commission:

  • Cutting California's dependence on petroleum-based fuels by 50% by 2030;
  • Increasing the state's Renewable Energy Portfolio-which California law already targets at 33% by 2020-to 50% by 2030; and
  • Increasing the energy efficiency of new California building stock by 50%.

These energy goals are every bit as daunting in 2015 as the then-newly-enacted provisions of the Warren-Alquist Act were in 1975.  But, as both Governor Brown and IPCC Chairman Pachauri noted this week, they are critical elements of California's overarching strategy to reduce the state's aggregate greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020; 50% by 2030; and fully 80% by 2050.

The Energy Commission's pioneering work over the past 40 years has been a critical element in moving California to a far cleaner, more sustainable future than was projected four decades ago.  The Commission will have to be even more innovative and thoughtful if it is to lead California to an even greener, more environment-friendly future 40 years from now.

Happy Birthday, Energy Commission!  Time to get back to work.