Region: National

IRA Implementation: The State of Play

It’s not easy to get a handle on IRA implementation, but some agencies are off to a good start.

The Inflation Reduction Act is Biden’s signature climate program.  You’d think it would be easy to get an analysis of the government’s funding efforts in its first year.  It’s not. This seems like an unforced error to me. In political terms, this seems like a lost opportunity to showcase the government’s achievements; it’s also a …

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Governor Gavin Newsom announces he will sign landmark climate disclosure bills SB 253 and SB 261!

SB 261 first proposed and drafted by CLEE Climate Risk Initiative

Breaking news! Governor Gavin Newsom just announced on stage at New York Climate Week that he will sign both of the landmark greenhouse gas emissions and climate risk disclosure bills, #SB253 (Wiener) and #SB261 (Stern), the later of which was first proposed and then drafted by our Climate Risk Initiative at the Center for Law, …

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CLEE-Proposed Climate Risk Disclosure Legislation Passes CA Legislature

SB 261 results from CLEE report recommendation

The California Legislature passed two path-breaking climate risk disclosure bills this week. Both bills now go to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk where he has until October 14th to sign them. Senate Bill 261 (Stern) requires major corporations to disclose climate change related financial risks, using a framework consistent with that of the Task Force on Climate …

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Vehicle Regulations on Trial

Three big cases in the D.C. Circuit will determine the fate of Biden’s vehicle regulations.

This week, the D.C. Circuit hears three cases challenging  use of federal regulations to push adoption of electric vehicles and to allow California to forge path toward zero-emission cars. If all three cases go badly, the regulatory system would be disabled from playing a role in this area. This would be a huge setback, though …

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Upcoming Regulatory Cases in the Supreme Court

Two pending cases could result in big cuts to agency powers

Three weeks from today, the Supreme Court starts its 2023 Term. There are two blockbuster cases on the docket.  In one case, the issue is whether to overrule the Chevron case, which has been foundational to administrative law for the past four decades. In the other, the issue is agency power to sanction violations of …

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How Major Corporate Fleets Can Drive Responsible and Sustainable EV Battery Supply Chains

New CLEE/Ceres report released today with recommendations for corporate EV fleet managers

The electric vehicle (EV) market is growing rapidly, but with this growth comes public pressure to ensure supply chains for EV batteries are sustainable. The soaring demand for batteries relies heavily on the extraction and refinement of critical minerals, processes that have far-reaching environmental and social impacts. Moreover, the global distribution of these operations leaves …

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Bowing to the Inevitable

The Supreme Court declared open season on the nation’s streams and wetlands. New regs are the result.

On August 25, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers (“the agencies”) issued a joint rule, which modifies their previous rule on federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act in order to conform with the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision. Sackett was a deeply misguided and harmful ruling — but it is nevertheless the law.  The …

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Can we make a map for wastewater innovation?

what road?

…or even a guidebook?

During one phase of my misspent youth, I travelled by bicycle in search of adventure and insight. (Hang with me, this relates to environmental management, and I’ll get to that soon.) On one tour, I started in Vietnam, ending up in Pakistan a couple years later, having made some detours and added other means of …

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 The Contradictory Attacks on Biden’s Climate Programs

“Job Killing” or “Overheating the Economy” — Which Is It?

“Job-killing regulations” is a longtime conservative meme. That attack has now been joined by the claim that major new spending for clean energy is overheating the economy. The inflation claim is new, prompted by the passage of the 2021 Infrastructure law and the 2022 IRA.   And if they were both right, the two problems would …

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Another Supply Chain Issue

Less exotic than rare earths but also needed: energy law teachers.

To make the energy transition work, we’ll need a lot more energy lawyers. That means a lot of energy law profs to teach them — many more than we have today.  Law schools are waking up to the need to hire in the area. So if you’re thinking of law teaching, it could be worthwhile …

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