Region: National
The CRA is Back in Play
What you need to know about the Congressional Review Act and Trump’s regulatory legacy
This post is co-authored by Beth Kent and Cara Horowitz Last week’s Georgia Senate victories have given Democrats (bare) control of the Senate—and, with it, the potential to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to erase some of the Trump Administration’s regulatory rollbacks. Here are four key things to know about this unique legislative oversight …
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CONTINUE READINGDawn of a New Era
Trump’s relentless war on the environment has finally come to an end.
A new chapter began when Joe Biden took the oath of office. That moment also marked the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, which featured efforts to roll back over a hundred environmental regulations. Biden campaigned on an ambitious plan to curb climate change, which he must now try to implement with a razor-thin control of …
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CONTINUE READINGDC Circuit Gets Help from Grid Experts in Vacating ACE Power Plant Rule
The importance of understanding how things work
I’ve seen lots of good analysis already (including this post from Dan) of the DC Circuit’s decision today to invalidate the Trump Administration’s ACE Rule, which governs climate emissions from coal-fired power plants and does essentially nothing to reduce those emissions. It turns out that doing essentially nothing is not enough. There’s a lot to …
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CONTINUE READINGA Big Win for Climate Regulation
The DC Circuit overturns Trump’s effort to hamstring regulation of carbon from power plants.
The D.C. Circuit issued an opinion today knocking out Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy rule. The Trump rule was a rollback of Obama’s keystone climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan. The majority opinion plus dissent take up 185 pages, and I won’t try to describe it all here. Briefly, here’s what the appeals court ruled and …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Pro-Environmental Acts — A VERY Short List
Despite its general hatred of environmental protection, the Trump Administration did manage a few positive steps.
This being the last day of Trump’s presidency, it’s appropriate to look back on his environmental record. Basically, Trump was to environmental law as General Sherman was to Georgia. In the time between his “American carnage” Inaugural Address to his unleashing of carnage on Capitol Hill, he and his minions devoted themselves to environmental destruction. …
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CONTINUE READINGStrategies to Reverse Federal Environmental Rollbacks
Last month, CLEE released a website that compiled over 180 Trump Administration environmental policy rollbacks, from the repeal of the Clean Power Plan to the removal of government climate change websites. We tracked and evaluated these rollbacks based on their environmental, climate, public health, and programmatic impacts; identified the pathway and difficulty of reversal; and …
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CONTINUE READINGRethinking Presidential Administration
Giving the President more control of regulation has been a good thing — up to a point.
Conservatives love to complain about faceless bureaucrats, but blaming bureaucrats for regulations is hopelessly out of date. When Elena Kagan was a professor, she wrote an article called “Presidential Administration.” The article applauded her former boss Bill Clinton for seizing greater control of the regulatory process away from agencies. That trend has accelerated to the …
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CONTINUE READINGToday Versus 2008
Despite Trump’s efforts, he couldn’t actually reset the clock to the pre-Obama era.
Obama moved us forward. Trump moved us backwards. Are we back where we began? No. Biden starts from a significantly stronger position than Obama did in 2008. In 2008, like today, the outgoing Republican President had adamantly opposed climate action, favored the oil and gas industry, and turned a cold shoulder toward environmental regulation. Trump …
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CONTINUE READINGAgriculture As A Climate Solution
New CLEE / Berkeley Food Institute report on how to promote regenerative agriculture
The climate fight should ultimately benefit all communities, just as they are all part of the solution. Agricultural communities are no exception. Farmers and ranchers can implement climate-friendly techniques that both sequester carbon and boost profits and long-term sustainability (sometimes referred to as “regenerative agriculture”). Examples of these practices include crop diversification and rotation, cover …
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CONTINUE READINGNext Steps to Save the Global Environment
A lot will need to be done to undo Trump’s harm to global cooperation. Here’s a start.
Trump’s hostility domestic environmental regulation is notorious. He also stalled or backpedaled on the international front. Here are seven steps that President Biden could take to remedy the situation. Rejoin the Paris Agreement. The U.S. needs to immediately rejoin the Paris Agreement. It also needs to update its climate target, because we can do a …
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