Entries by sebastian@ruccilaw.com

The Timeline of Obstruction: Every Delay, Every Maneuver, Every Month Lost

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Development timelines matter in ways that the legal system, with its tolerance for prolonged proceedings, does not always fully account for. Every month that a permitted project sits in litigation is a month that construction wages are not flowing into the local economy, a month that property tax revenues are not reaching school districts, a […]

When Environmental Law Becomes a Business: CEQA Abuse in California’s Inland Regions

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California’s environmental review process was designed to give communities a voice in decisions that affect their air, water, and land. In the decades since CEQA’s passage, it has become something additional: a revenue source for organizations that have learned to extract settlement payments from developers by threatening CEQA litigation regardless of the project’s actual environmental […]

How a Large Industrial Customer Makes Everyone’s Electricity Bill Cheaper

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Utility economics work differently than most consumers realize. A power utility — whether a private investor-owned utility or a public entity like the Imperial Irrigation District — has substantial fixed costs: transmission lines, substations, generation capacity, billing infrastructure, regulatory compliance, and the administrative apparatus required to operate a reliable electric grid. These fixed costs exist […]

Twenty Years After Google: What The Dalles, Oregon Looks Like Now

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The Dalles, Oregon sits on the Columbia River at the boundary between the Columbia Gorge and the high desert — a small city of approximately 16,000 people with a history in aluminum smelting, agriculture, and the timber industry. By the early 2000s, the smelter had closed, the timber economy had contracted, and the city was […]