Boehner’s Blunderbuss
The Speaker's authority to sue federal officials is remarkably broad.
The House passed a resolution Wednesday authorizing Speaker Boehner to file suit on its behalf. A resulting suit is unlikely to succeed for a host of reasons, including the dubious legal standing of the House to bring such a case. But if it does succeed, this kind of mechanism could have real benefits at some future time when a Democratic Congress is facing a Republican Administration reluctant to enforce environmental laws. Indeed, the Resolution is impressive...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change Adaptation Strategy: Can California Do More?
Is Increased Reliance on the Public Trust Doctrine an Essential Part of Effective State Adaptation Policy?
I often tell students in my Climate Change Law and Policy course that adaptation--that is, how we can best adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change--is the poor stepchild of the debate over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. By that I mean that climate change mitigation (i.e., how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) generates far more attention and activity--in legislative chambers, regulatory agencies, courts--than do climate change adaptation ...
CONTINUE READINGIs California Finally Ready to Get Serious About Groundwater Reform?
Prospects Good for Passage of Landmark Groundwater Legislation
California, which prides itself as being a national and international leader in so many areas of environmental policy, lags woefully behind other jurisdictions when it comes to at least one subject area: groundwater regulation. Alone among the Western states in the U.S., California lacks any statewide system of groundwater regulation and planning. (Until a few years ago, California shared that dubious distinction with Texas; but even the Lone Star State adopted state...
CONTINUE READINGA Response to John Nagle: The Clean Air Act as a Whole Supports Climate Regulation
Debating the Relationship between the Healthcare Fight and Climate Regulation
Last week, conflicting federal court decisions regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as the ACA or “Obamacare,” set the nation abuzz. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation providing federal subsidies to low-income taxpayers who purchase health insurance through a state-run or federally run insurance exchange. The D.C. Circuit held that the subsidy regulati...
CONTINUE READINGCongressman Waxman Tells FERC: Read UC Berkeley’s Climate Change Study
Henry Waxman urges FERC to act on greenhouse gas emissions.
In a Congressional hearing this morning, Congressman Henry Waxman had a rare chance to face all five sitting members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at the same time to talk about climate change. He took the opportunity to point out UC Berkeley’s recent report on FERC’s authority under existing law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He placed the report into the Congressional Record and expressed his hope that the commissioners would give the repo...
CONTINUE READINGRand Paul and the Environment (Take 2)
Guess what: he's no friend of the environment.
Yesterday I posted a confused discussion of Paul's environmental views. (Probably due to brain lock from spending too many hours puzzling over the numerical examples in EME Homer!) I wanted to replace it with a clearer description of his views, so I pulled it from the website. Let's try this again. This first thing to know about Senator Paul is that he loves coal. His favorite period of the past must be the Permian Era. He's a co-sponsor of Mitch McConnell...
CONTINUE READINGGeneral Permits and the Regulation of Greenhouse Gases
The Supreme Court ignored a major option for effective regulation
Author’s Note: The following post is co-authored by Eric Biber and J.B. Ruhl, the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law and the Co-Director of the Energy, Environment, and Land Use Program at Vanderbilt Law School. It is also cross-posted at Reg Blog. Reg Blog, supported by the U Penn Program on Regulation is an excellent source of commentary and insights on administrative law. The Supreme Court was recently asked (yet again) to resolve the question ...
CONTINUE READINGDoes Scalia’s Opinion in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA Help Protect the ACA?
The UARG majority opinion says the context and overall structure of a statute help determine the meaning of statutory terms
The tax subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act to pay for health insurance are, of course, the subject of significant press coverage since dueling federal appeals courts came to different conclusions about who receives them this week. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held, in a 2-1 decision called Harbig v. Burwell, that an Internal Revenue Service regulation extending the tax subsidies to taxpayers who purchase insurance from the federally-operated exchan...
CONTINUE READINGThe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Can Do a Lot to Reduce Greenhouse Gas
A new report shows that FERC has extensive power to address climate change.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has captured the attention of the energy world with its proposed regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants – and for good reason. The EPA’s authority is broad and its resolve to address climate change is evident. But other federal agencies are in a position to make a difference, as well – most notably the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC is the agency that sets rates ...
CONTINUE READINGGroundwater and the public trust doctrine, California style
California trial court rules that public trust doctrine applies to pumping that reduces flow in a navigable waterway
If you follow California water law or environmental law, you probably have been aware that the Environmental Law Foundation has been pursuing a public trust claim based on groundwater pumping that affects the Scott River. Last week they gained a victory at the trial court level, with a ruling that endorses the principle that groundwater removals affecting flows in a navigable stream are subject to the public trust doctrine. Appeals are sure to follow, and it's still ...
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