Will the Supreme Court Gut the Clean Water Act?
We’re about to find out in an upcoming case.
What wetlands and waterbodies does the Clean Water Act protect? Congress failed to provide a clear answer when it passed the statute, and the issue has been a bone of contention ever since. The Biden Administration is in the process of issuing a new regulation on the subject. Normally, you’d expect the Supreme Court to wait to jump in until then. Instead, the Court reached out to grab Sackett v. EPA, where landowners take a really extreme position on the subject. Not...
CONTINUE READINGDon’t hamstring carbon removal
California needs to lead in developing critical carbon removal technologies
Assessments by the IPCC have made clear that the most feasible way for the world to meet its target of restricting climate change to below two degrees Celsius of warming includes rapid and massive expansion of carbon removal technology – technology that would extract carbon dioxide and permanently sequester that carbon dioxide underground. California has long been a leader in decarbonization, but proposed legislation in Sacramento would hamstring California’s effor...
CONTINUE READINGTwo and a half cheers for the IRA
Climate legislation sets the stage not just for decarbonization now, but greater policy success later on
The announcement of the legislative deal (the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022) between Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and the Democratic Senate leadership was a bid deal in climate policy. The legislation relies on the reconciliation process, allowing it to pass with a simple 50 votes (plus Vice President Harris’ tie-breaker vote). The legislation provides for hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in decarbonization in the American economy – and current esti...
CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Law in US Law Schools
There are strong programs in schools up and down the pecking order.
Although I've taught environmental law for a long time, my knowledge of the programs at U.S. law schools is pretty hit or miss. In the hope of finding out more, I did a quick survey of U.S. schools. The results make it clear that environmental law has a foothold at law schools of all kinds. Here are the details about my "quick and dirty" survey. My sample was drawn from the membership list of the American Association of Law Schools, which includes 93% of ABA acc...
CONTINUE READINGThe climate bill and oil and gas leasing
Provision in big climate bill that mandates oil and gas leasing on federal lands has limited reach
The big news in climate policy this past week was Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) signing off on a deal with the Democratic Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on climate investments – the bill is catchily called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. I’ll take a look at the big picture for the bill in a subsequent post, but here I want to zero in on a provision of the proposed legislation that has gotten a lot of attention, and...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Adaptation Moves Toward Center Stage
There’s an increasing bipartisan move to fund climate resilience.
The big news today is the deal with Manchin to provide billions of dollars of funding for clean energy. Manchin's vote will be needed because no Republican Senator will vote for the bill. In contrast, funding for climate resilience has drawing power even for Republicans. It seems to be true that, in Bob Dylan’s words “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” You don’t even need a climate modeler. The need for adaptation has becomi...
CONTINUE READINGTaking A Data-Driven Tour of Air Pollution Law
After Half a Century, What Do We Really Know about the Impacts of the Clean Air Act?
Earlier this year, a team of economists published a retrospective paper on the Clean Air Act. It surveys the economic literature to find out what the data tells us about emission trading systems, the effects of pollutants, and effects of imposing tougher regulatory requirements in areas that failed to meet national air quality standards. Some of the findings are not surprises: stricter regulations actually do result in improved air quality. Others are more surprising. Th...
CONTINUE READINGWhat the Supreme Court Left Standing
No, the Court didn't eliminate EPA's ability to fight climate change.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in the West Virginia case left many people with the impression that it eliminated the government’s power to regulate carbon emissions. There are quite a number of areas of climate law that the Supreme Court has left untouched. Here’s the EPA authority the Court hasn't touched: EPA’s jurisdiction over greenhouse gases. There was some worry that the Court might overrule Massachusetts v. EPA, which gave EPA authority to regulate gree...
CONTINUE READINGDeclaring a Climate Change Emergency: A Citizen’s Guide
Would it be legal to declare a national emergency for climate change? Would it be useful? Here's what you need to know.
Based on press reports, it now seems likely that Biden will soon declare climate change to be a national emergency. Would this be legal? Would it unlock important powers that could be used to fight climate change? My answers are: It would probably be legal, and it would unlock some significant powers. But an emergency declaration is not a magic wand that gives Presidents a blank check. It would allow some constructive steps to be taken, but within limits. I wrote ...
CONTINUE READINGStanford’s Sustainability School: A Good Model?
There are pros and cons, but it makes sense to bring the university org. chart into the 21st century.
In my last post, I wrote about universities like Stanford that are creating new programs in sustainability. Stanford's move may inspire others to follow. There are pros and cons, but it seems inevitable that the organization of universities will ultimately take account of one of the biggest problems facing humanity. Administrative reorganizations, whether in government, business, or the academy, are always difficult and costly, often taking years before the rearra...
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