The state's environmental agencies may be insulated from the new ruling stripping federal administrative agencies of power -- and they're picking up the slack. But do they have the capacity and expertise to do the job?

But it was less clear how the justices would instruct local governments about how to apply narrower exaction rules to General Plans.

By taking a development fee case from El Dorado County, the U.S. Supreme Court may have the chance to narrow current limitations on exactions -- or get rid of them altogether.

The justices have taken aim at the "substantive due process" argument -- which landowners have always tried to use to overturn land use decisions they don't like.

In a case from San Francisco, high court punches another hole in the Williamson County doctrine.

Also: Statute of limitations on the Mitigation Fee Act, a request to depublish the Millenium Hollywood case, and the U.S. Supreme decline to hear a takings case from Massachusetts involving a local wetlands ordinance.

With 4-4 ties looming, court will have to decide whether to rehear cases. >>read more