Federal Climate Policy
Young Climate Plaintiffs Won Big in Montana. Can They Again?
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
One of the biggest climate victories to date belongs to 19-year-old Eva Lighthiser and the other Montana youth climate plaintiffs who won their landmark case against state officials and saw it upheld in the state Supreme Court. Now, some of those same young people — Lighthiser included — are headed back to court next week …
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CONTINUE READINGThank You, President Trump, for Opening the Door to Carbon Tariffs
Democrats should make it clear that this will be on the agenda if the Supreme Court upholds Trump’s tariffs.
As a matter of policy, a border adjustment for carbon emissions is much more defensible than the kinds of tariffs that Trump is proposing. And conservatives need to know that what is sauce of the goose is sauce for the gander. Or to switch metaphors, liberals need to show that they’re willing to move beyond bringing baked goods to a gunfight.
CONTINUE READINGHow We Teach Environmental Law is Changing
UCLA Law faculty talk about how they are teaching environmental law differently in challenging times.
Environmental law is still relatively new and keeps changing all the time. After all, the field of environmental law didn’t really exist in the U.S. until pollution fears in the 1950s and ’60s spurred political activism. From 1970 to 1978, Congress passed more than a dozen of the most important environmental laws by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Imperious Presidency
Executive Orders by Biden and Trump speak volumes about their perspectives.
It’s not a surprise that Trump has little respect for expertise and immense antagonism toward those he views as his enemies. What’s striking, however, is that way that these attitudes leak into even the most formal government documents, where they shape the official justifications for presidential actions. To borrow a phrase from Justice Scalia, sometimes a wolf comes in sheep’s clothing. But “this wolf comes as a wolf.”
CONTINUE READINGWhich Effects Count?
Conservatives argue that only the effects that they care about should matter.
Not that long ago, conservatives demanded that the government balance costs and benefits. They still do, but with a twist: They demand special limits on consideration of environmental effects. But that makes no sense. Whatever rules we have about costs should apply to all types of costs, and the same with benefits. The result of the skewing the analysis is, not surprisingly, that we get conservative results more often.
CONTINUE READINGWhy Does Misinformation Follow Extreme Weather?
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Nowadays when an extreme weather event strikes in America, what follows is a secondary emergency in the form of misinformation on social media. We’ve seen it play out after floods and heat waves, but this phenomenon really goes into overdrive after hurricanes and wildfires. A recent report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate looked …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Woeful Economics of a Misguided Rollback
The costs of Trump’s rollback of key climate rules far outweigh any benefits.
Trump’s rollback of regulations limiting emissions from power plants is an economic disaster. According to economists, health damages far exceed savings from lower compliance costs. Just considering health impacts alone, the net cost of the rollback will be $129 billion through 2050. Climate damages add another $148 billion in costs.
CONTINUE READINGDear 2025 1L:
Avoiding a climate disaster isn’t something today’s students can plan on tackling “over the course of their careers.” The most critical time will be the next fifteen years, which means you’ll need to get to work quickly.What we do together between now and 2035 will determine what your lives look like in 2050 and 2080, and what your children and grandchildren will see in the next century. So grab your books, get yourselves ready, and be prepared to head for the trenches when you graduate. No time to waste!
CONTINUE READINGThe Energy Secretary Pushes Pseudoscience
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Remember alternative facts? That catch phrase from Season 1, Episode 1 where Trump officials lied about the size of his inauguration crowd has now metastasized into a governing philosophy for how federal agencies plan to ignore, and ultimately exacerbate, the climate crisis. Trump 2.0 is pushing alternative science. Late last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright …
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CONTINUE READINGChina is Kicking Our Ass at Our Own Game
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The first time I saw a Chinese-made EV on the road I was walking on a crowded sidewalk in São Paulo. It was a Saturday night this May, when the whole city seemed to be out enjoying the warm weather. A street rave took over an entire block so to keep moving, we pedestrians had …
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