Decision to spare Florida from offshore drilling could help California

Eric Biber and Holly Doremus quoted by San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 10, 2018

Biber: “If a state doesn’t want something happening, even on federal lands within their borders, they can make it really hard for the federal government to effectively do it,” he said. “I would be surprised in eight years if any of this is leased in California.”

Doremus: “It is clearly not within the secretary of interior’s authority to reward the administration’s political friends with a continued moratorium while punishing its political enemies with (oil) leasing,” she said.

Amicus briefs support Arista in Cisco litigation

Pamela Samuelson cited by Project DisCo, Jan. 9, 2018

Professor Pam Samuelson … argued that the scenes a faire doctrine was more robust than suggested by Cisco. … Further, Professor Samuelson argued that Cisco’s argument that it had a copyright in the compilation of commands was incoherent given that there was no free-standing work constituting a compilation of commands.

California firms see high deals

Adam Badawi quoted by Daily Journal (registration required), Jan. 8, 2018

“For some companies, a proxy fight is cost prohibitive to run, but that might not be the case for a company like Broadcom,” Badawi said. “A credible threat of a proxy fight would put some pressure on the existing board to make a deal, especially if it looks like Broadcom is going to win.”

Jeff Sessions used to be a champion of states’ rights. Then California legalized weed

Erwin Chemerinsky writes for The Sacramento Bee, Jan. 8, 2018

Throughout American history, conservatives have championed “states’ rights.” Sessions himself has done so on countless occasions, such as when he rescinded the Obama policy interpreting federal law to protect transgender students. But when Sessions does not like what states are doing, such as legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, his commitment to federalism and states’ rights vanishes.

Trump proposed a massive expansion of offshore drilling—what can states do?

Holly Doremus and Jordan Diamond quoted by Ars Technica, Jan. 6, 2018

Doremus added that there’s another way states can make trouble for the federal government: by denying permits for onshore support equipment. “It’s tough to have an offshore oil production facility without some onshore support activities. … States control whether and where those can be built within state boundaries…”

Jordan Diamond … told Ars, “we are proposing opening up vastly increased offshore areas to oil production, many of which are in ecologically extremely sensitive areas, while we remove safety regulations and operate under an outdated restoration framework.”

Big-city murders drop to historic lows

Franklin Zimring quoted by The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 5, 2018

“Policing has got to stay effective to hold those gains because every day is a new day for committing crimes, but as to whether you can go lower [in New York] that’s a very different question,” said Franklin Zimring.