What Would Climate Policy Look Like Under One-Party Conservative Rule?
You only need to look at Texas or Florida for the answer: a complete erasure of climate action.
We haven’t seen at the national level what climate policy would look like under a government completely controlled by today's hard-right -- one possible outcome of the 2024 election. Trump did have a Republican Congress at one point, but more moderate conservatives still held the balance of power there. Today’s hard-right Republican Party has left more conventional conservatives like Mitch McConnell in the dust. So what would a GOP trifecta look like today? We can...
CONTINUE READINGSchedule F and the Future of the Regulatory State
What is Schedule F? Would it be legal? And why does it matter so much?
Trump has vowed to destroy the “deep state” and to wreak vengeance on his enemies. Something called “Schedule F” is one of the key tools he plans to use as soon as he takes office to “remove rogue bureaucrats,” and he promises to use that tool “very aggressively.” Trump's plan would replace thousands of government experts with MAGA ideologues and partisan hacks. Despite its sweeping consequences, Trump's plan relies on an obscure technicality. Schedu...
CONTINUE READINGJustin Pidot: Manchin’s Latest and Last Run at Promoting Fossil Fuels through a Permitting Reform Bill
His proposal is a bad deal on climate and an afront to environmental justice
Last week, Senator Manchin unveiled his latest permitting bill, negotiated with Senator Barrasso and set to be marked up by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Wednesday. After recently completing a 3 ½ year stint as general counsel at the White House Counsel of Environmental Quality, I recognize that continuing to improve federal permitting and environmental review processes is important work. But without extensive surgery, this bill should not ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Best Reason for Optimism About Climate Action
As the saying goes, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
In 2010, a major climate change law passed by the House died in the Senate, but 12 years later, a major climate law passed both Houses. In the meantime, there had been a revolution in energy economics. If cellphone prices had dropped as fast since 2010 as the cost of power from solar panels, you could buy a new iPhone for about thirty bucks today. I'll unpack the numbers, but this graph from Penn State tells the story. Even if you don't much care for graphs, I gua...
CONTINUE READINGThe D.C. Circuit and the Biden Power Plant Rule
The court’s denial of a stay is very good news for EPA
On Friday, the D.C. Circuit issued a two-page opinion refusing to stay a regulation. The D.C. Circuit frequently denies stays, but this ruling was notable for three reasons: It allows an important climate change regulation to go into effect; it clarifies an important legal doctrine; and it has a good chance of being upheld on appeal – even though the Supreme Court overturned a previous regulation on the same subject. The Biden Administration’s regulation essential...
CONTINUE READING35 Major Climate Initiatives Under Biden
By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here's a timeline of the Top 30 actions.
In light of President Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race yesterday, we thought it was appropriate to update this piece about the climate legacy of the Biden-Harris Administration. In his four years in office, Donald Trump rolled back essentially every existing federal policy to limit climate change. The picture under the Biden Administration has been a dramatic reversal, enacting lots of environmental protections and starting to spend tens of billi...
CONTINUE READINGHere We Go Again! (Maybe)
The possibility of a second Trump presidency looms ahead. Time for some contingency planning!
The 2024 election won’t be decided until Election Day. At this point, what we can say is that the prospect of a second Trump term is real. Unlike 2016, when the outcome was a complete surprise to many people, we’re in a position to think ahead about possible policy shifts and possible responses. As the Project 2025 report shows, people on the other side are doing their own contingency planning, and so should climate advocates. Everything so far in the campaign i...
CONTINUE READINGIs 2025 the Year of the Carbon Tax?
Carbon border adjustment mechanisms are increasingly the talk of Washington. UCLA Law’s Kimberly Clausing explains some of the options on the table.
There’s a big, important tax debate looming next year—one with opportunities and risks for climate policy, particularly the idea of a carbon tax. It can be hard to see this debate thanks to the daily churn of the 2024 presidential election, but it’s there on the horizon if you squint. For one thing, we’ll likely close out this year as the new “hottest year on record” just before the next President of the United States takes office. Then by the end of 2025...
CONTINUE READINGRenewable Energy: A Timeline
Today’s wind and solar resources didn’t come out of nowhere.
The first efforts to use of wind to generate electricity was 134 years ago, and the photoelectric effect was discovered six decades earlier. So in a sense, these are old technologies — about the same age as the very first internal combustion engines. But the scientific and technological advances that made these technologies competitive with fossil fuels are much more recent. One thing you’ll notice is the importance of government-funded research and deployment ince...
CONTINUE READINGUnderstanding Loper: A Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing?
The real world effects may be limited. Or they may undercut presidential power, to the surprise of advocates of the unitary executive.
This post is the last in a weeklong series on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Loper Bright case. The ruling caused much rejoicing among conservatives who foretold the death of the administrative state. Among liberals, there was much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. No one focused on the nuanced doctrine that the Court created to replace Chevron. In this week's blog posts, I have argued that the legal effect of the decision is likely to be incremental rath...
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