Air Quality

The Problems with the SCOTUS ‘Good Neighbor’ Arguments

Guest contributors Megan Herzog and Sean Donahue write that last week’s argument in the case of EPA’s Good Neighbor Rule shows the perils of agency rulemaking cases on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket.

Megan M. Herzog (former Emmett/Frankel Fellow at UCLA School of Law 2012-2016) and Sean H. Donahue are partners at Donahue, Goldberg & Herzog, which represents the Environmental Defense Fund, a Respondent-Intervenor in the Good Neighbor Rule litigation.   Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court did something it has done only three times in the last half-century—it heard …

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Recentering Environmental Law: A Thought Experiment

If we had understood then what we know now. . . .

In 1965, scientists sent LBJ a memo mentioning the risks of climate change. Imagine if history had been a little different. Suppose it had been this memo and a follow-up report, rather than Rachel Carson’s attack on pesticides, that sparked the environmental movement. How would environmental law look different and how might we be thinking about …

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The New Particulate Standard and the Courts

The tough new air quality standard is sure to be challenged in court. Winning the challenges will be tougher.

EPA has just issued a rule tightening the air quality standard for PM2.5 — the tiny particles most dangerous to health — from an annual average of 12 μg/m³  (micrograms per cubic meter) down to 9 μg/m³. EPA estimates that, by the time the rule goes into effect in 2032, it will avoid 4500 premature …

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Interstate Pollution and the Supreme Court’s “Shadow Docket”

The Court considers whether to stay an EPA plan in light of changed circumstances.

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument about whether to stay a plan issued by EPA to limit upwind states from creating ozone pollution that impacts other states.  As I wrote before the Court decided to hear the arguments, the issues here seem less than earthshaking, and for that matter, less than …

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7 Reasons California Should Get Tougher on Methane from Dairies

A dairy cow

California lawmakers should rethink the role of dairy digesters in the state’s dairy and livestock mitigation strategy.

Even though California aims to decrease the emissions of methane, dairy operations are rewarded for creating, and capturing, more and more of the planet-warming super pollutant in the form of manure-derived biogas. Today, California lawmakers declined to correct that perverse incentive, but they still have opportunities to rethink the state’s embrace of digesters as its …

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The Unique Legal Context of EPA Methane  Regulations

Three separate congressional actions intersect to support the regulations.

The government’s efforts to control methane have followed a complicated path, involving three different congressional actions:  section 111 of the Clean Air Act,  which allows EPA to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases; a congressional override of an earlier regulatory action; and a newer statute that creates a fee on methane emissions.  The upshot is to …

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The U.S. Supreme Court & Environmental Law in 2024

Numerous Key Environmental Issues and Doctrines Will Confront the Justices This Year

As we begin 2024, it’s useful to identify and assess the many environmental issues that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide this year.  It seems likely that the conservative majority of the justices will erode or, perhaps, dramatically jettison longstanding principles of environmental law and policy in the coming months. Summarized below are …

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Centering Public Health at the UN Climate Talks

A pollution pod at COP28

Guest Contributor Meleana Chun-Moy reflects on COP28 and the growing recognition of the intersection between the climate crisis and human health.

The climate crisis is a public health crisis, and it finally seems global leaders have recognized that fact. With the backdrop of the first-ever Health Day at the annual UN climate conference, air quality in Dubai soared, as PM2.5 pollution reached 155 micrograms per cubic unit. The World Health Organization states the annual average concentrations …

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The Mystery of the Missing Stay Order

Why is the Supreme Court waiting for weeks to dispose of a demand for extraordinary intervention in a routine situation?

The steel industry applied for Supreme Court intervention on what they claimed was an urgent issue of vast national importance. Chief Justice Roberts requested an immediate government response. That was six weeks ago.  Since then . . . crickets. No doubt you’re on the edge of your seat, wondering about the impending crisis facing the …

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The New Frontier of Methane Regulation 

A climate and weather satellite

Nations, companies, and NGOs are targeting methane like never before using satellite data. A new UCLA paper outlines what that could mean for regulation. 

Methane is ready for its close-up. The first week of COP28, the UN climate talks taking place in Dubai, saw a handful of big announcements about how world leaders plan to tackle human-made climate change by targeting methane, a powerful short-term climate pollutant. The UCLA Emmett Institute is also drawing attention to the issue of …

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