Region: National

A Very Bad House Vehicle Pollution Bill

The Fuel Emissions Freedom Act may be a stunt, but it’s worth examining

It can be hard to keep track amid all the hair-raising developments in Congress and at the Supreme Court, but last week, a group of House Republicans led by Roger Williams of Texas introduced the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act, hot on the heels of the purported (illegal) termination of California’s vehicle emissions standard waiver. This freedom-to-pollute …

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Don’t Panic About the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Universal Injunctions

The Court left open a variety of workarounds. At least for the now.

In a case involving birthright citizenship, Trump v. CASA, the Court limited the power of judges to issue universal injunctions that protect everyone subject to an illegal government policy. President Trump hailed this outcome as a great victory, and it does provide more maneuvering room for him and future presidents.  But the Court’s reasoning does not implicate most judicial rulings about the legality of regulations.  The Court also left open some important questions that will be furiously litigated in the lower courts or the Supreme Court itself.

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The Quiet Erosion of Federal Legal Internships 

Guest Contributor Emma Rose Shore, a UCLA Law student, reflects on the current administration’s attack on civil servants and the cancellation of summer internships. 

One morning last October, I got really exciting news. After an interview with a senior attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance, I was offered a position in the National Environmental Training Institute’s Summer Honors Program (NETI). My giddiness must have been obvious, because the interviewer asked if I wanted to …

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The Emperor’s New Endangerment Theory (Wrap-Up)

Trump digs coal. Public domain image via Wikicommons.

Trump’s EPA says carbon emissions from U.S. power plants are too insignificant to regulate.

U.S. power plants emit 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, a little less than the entire country of Russia. The Trump Administration is proposing to end all regulation of carbon emissions by power plants, on the theory that these emissions should be considered insignificant. They have some complicated legal arguments , but the arguments break down the more closely you look at them.

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The Emperor’s New Endangerment Theory (Part III)

How did EPA get to the absurd conclusion that 1.5 billion tons of carbon emissions aren’t significant? Well might you ask.

There is a very good chance that a court would strike down a EPA’s current finding that carbon emissions from the U.S. power sector are too insignificant to regulate.  EPA’s effort to explain its ultimate conclusion rests on a hodgepodge of poorly analyzed considerations, which obviously have been reverse engineered to lead to EPA’s preferred conclusion. 

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The Emperor’s New Endangerment Theory (Part II)

To justify a decision not to regulate CO2 from power plants, EPA had to twist statutory language beyond all recognition.

According to EPA, carbon emissions from the U.S. power sector are too insignificant to warrant regulation. This is a bizarre conclusion: U.S. power sector’s emissions are around 6.5 billion tons, just below Russia’s total emissions from all sectors.  To reach this conclusion, EPA has proposed a novel reading of the Clean Air Act. In EPA’s view, before it could regulate those emissions, it would first have to make a formal finding that they “cause or significantly contribute” to climate change, and (2) that this has to be judged on the basis of the sector’s percentage of total global carbon emissions. The statute doesn’t say either of those things.

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The “Big Beautiful Bill” is One Damn Dirty Deal

The Drain

The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.

My family is about to take a road trip. Out our window we will see beaches, lakes, and a whole lot of public land that would be eligible to be sold off to developers and corporations under the recent version of a budget bill that Republicans want to rush through this week.  Welcome to The …

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The Emperor’s New Endangerment Theory (Part I)

EPA says the electricity sector’s climate impacts aren’t significant. Really??

EPA has proposed a novel reading of the Clean Air Act (CAA) that would foreclose any regulation of CO2 emissions from power plants. EPA’s core argument is that the statute requires it to determine whether an industry’s emissions “cause or contribute significantly” to climate change and that the industry’s  carbon emissions don’t meet that standard. …

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Major permitting reform will (likely) be bipartisan

Senate parliamentarian shoots down effort to use “pay to play” to avoid judicial review of NEPA

Several weeks ago I wrote about an effort by House Republicans to use reconciliation, a process which avoids the Senate filibuster, for a “pay to play” proposal to gut NEPA.  The proposal would have allowed sponsors of projects going through NEPA review to pay an extra fee and avoid judicial review of the NEPA review.  …

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Talking to Skeptics About Clean Energy

Some people will stop listening if you talk about climate change. But there are other arguments.

The dangers of climate change provide excellent reasons to support clean energy. But that argument can be futile — or worse, counterproductive — when listeners don’t take climate change seriously or reject the idea altogether. Fortunately, there are other arguments that may better appeal to them.

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