Region: National
The Forthcoming Interpretation Wars
The new NEPA amendments weren’t intended to speed up the process. But they’ll also spark new litigation.
The Interior Department has a rule that environmental review isn’t required for a prescribed fire of 4,500 acres, subject to restrictions that aren’t relevant here. Prior law authorized this kind of regulation but also required the agency to consider whether a particular fire involved exceptional circumstances, such as being next to a wilderness area. After …
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CONTINUE READINGWho Will Own the Clean Energy Future?
In the latest push to finance renewable energy, we have allowed private actors to make substantial claims on public resources without asking for anything in return.
This post was first published at the Law & Political Economy blog as part of their ongoing series on climate, economics, and green capitalism. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been hailed as the most significant piece of federal climate legislation ever enacted in the United States. Although it has not had much competition on …
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CONTINUE READINGThe New NEPA: A User’s Guide
The Debt Ceiling Law Rewrote NEPA. Here’s a map to the new statute.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed over fifty years. It created a new tool for environmental protection, the environmental impact statements, It also created the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which issued guidelines of implementing NEPA in 1978. Lawyers will need to retool quickly because of recent changes. Here’s a roadmap …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s Next in the Fight over Berkeley’s Natural Gas Ordinance
In a petition seeking review of the decision, the City of Berkeley says that the opinion from a Ninth Circuit panel takes federal preemption too far.
The City of Berkeley just filed a petition for en banc review in its long-running litigation in defense of an ordinance it passed that restricts natural-gas infrastructure in new construction. This litigation has been watched by many in the climate-policy world because of the popularity of laws like Berkeley’s; it took on new relevance for local-authority …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the Perils of Hasty Drafting
The Debt Ceiling Bill was written under intense time pressure. It shows!
Someone asked me how the new bill defines what kinds of projects have enough federal involvement to require an environmental assessment. I thought I knew the answer. But when I looked carefully at the bill’s language, I realized that it actually can’t mean what I thought it did. In fact, it’s so badly written that …
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CONTINUE READINGSackett and the Dangers of a New ‘Clear-Statement Rule’
The Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA will be bad for the nation’s wetlands. It is just as bad for democracy.
The Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA limits the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to defend a large portion of the nation’s wetlands and waterways from pollution. The decision strips key environmental protections from the Clean Water Act by narrowly defining which bodies of water can be regulated under the Act, making it the most …
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CONTINUE READINGNEPA and the Debt Deal
Will the permitting sections of the debt ceiling bill undermine environmental reviews?
Prior to the release of the text of the debt ceiling bill Sunday night, press reports had mentioned only a couple of provisions relating to environmental impact statements. It turns out there’s a lot more. The bill would make numerous changes in the statute governing impact statements, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). …
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CONTINUE READINGDefault and the Environment
What are the environmental impacts of Uncle Sam’s failure to pay his debts on time?
A journalist asked me how a default might impact environmental law. As I thought about it, I realized that the answers were, “In one way, very little,” and “In another way, potentially a disaster.” The effects might not amount to much. Or we could be talking about multigenerational climate impacts. There’s a lot of uncertainty …
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CONTINUE READINGA decade of unraveling the effects of regulation on water innovation
By Michael Kiparsky, with Dave Smith, Nell Green Nylen, Luke Sherman, Alida Cantor, Anita Milman, Felicia Marcus, David Sedlak, Bernhard Truffer, Christian Binz, Sasha Harris-Lovett, Jeff Lape, Justin Mattingly, Dave Owen, Lars Tummers, Buzz Thompson
In a recent post, my colleagues and I reported on our most recent research output in a long series of projects examining the effect of regulation on water innovation. The post describes a new framework for understanding and, ultimately, improving relationships between regulators and wastewater utility managers who are seeking to implement novel technical solutions, …
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CONTINUE READINGHas the Supreme Court Declared Open Season on Interstate Commerce?
How to read a baffling Supreme Court ruling.
If you’re a lawyer or a lower court judge, you know you’ve got a problem when the Supreme Court’s opinion begins with a list of parts of the opinion that do or don’t have a majority, along with a list of what different permutations of judges said what about the issues. The Pork Producers case …
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