Clean Air Act
Update on the Litigation Over EPA’s Rule Controlling Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New Power Plants
UCLA Faculty File Amicus Brief on Behalf of Technological Innovation Experts
Late in 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency issued New Source Performance Standards to control greenhouse gas emissions from new and modified fossil-fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act. This regulation is a companion to the more-often-discussed Clean Power Plan rule, which addresses greenhouse gas emissions from existing sources in the power generation sector. Last …
CONTINUE READINGThe Clean Power Plan Oral Arguments
After marathon hearing, EPA comes out on top
Greetings, Legal Planet readers! As many of you know, I left the UCLA Law community several months ago for a new position in the environmental law world. But today, I emerge from blog-retirement for one very special post: insights from Tuesday’s oral arguments in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals over EPA’s Clean Power Plan. …
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CONTINUE READINGMajor Settlement Announced in Volkswagen Emissions Fraud Litigation
$14.7 Billion Civil Enforcement Settlement is a Victory for Consumers, Environmental Prosecutors
Federal and state environmental prosecutors today announced a proposed settlement of government civil enforcement litigation they’ve pursued against Volkswagen in response to the automaker’s acknowledged efforts to cheat federal and state auto emission standards and defraud consumers. The complex settlement, lodged with the assigned U.S. district court judge in San Francisco, requires Volkswagen to pay …
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CONTINUE READINGUCLA Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of Electric Grid Experts in “Clean Power Plan” Case
Supporting EPA’s regulation of power-sector carbon emissions
Today, several of us at UCLA Law School’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment—me, Cara Horowitz, Sarah Duffy, & Ann Carlson—together with Professor William Boyd of University of Colorado Law School, filed an amici curiae brief on behalf of five electric grid experts in support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan” …
CONTINUE READINGEPA Wins the First Round in Clean Power Plan Litigation
…But this is just the beginning—and the Supreme Court will have a say
As we reported last week, on January 21st, a D.C. Circuit panel denied Clean Power Plan opponents’ request for a “stay”—or temporary suspension—of the rule pending judicial review. Read the court order here. We have discussed the Clean Power Plan litigation at length on Legal Planet. As a quick refresher, the Clean Power Plan is …
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CONTINUE READINGWant an Economy-Wide Cap on U.S. Climate Emissions? Consider This Corner of the Clean Air Act
New report on Section 115 of the Act suggests an interesting post-Paris approach
A largely-untapped provision of the Clean Air Act authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop and implement an economy-wide, market-based program to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the Obama Administration’s Paris Agreement pledge, according to a report released today by several coordinating law school centers, including the Emmett Institute at UCLA. See …
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Kate Konschnik: The Debate about EPA’s Authority to Regulate Carbon Pollution is a Lot of Things – But Not These Things
Kate Konschnik is the Director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental Policy Initiative. The views expressed in this blog post are her own.
Clean Power Plan challengers have asked the D.C. Circuit to stay the rule pending litigation. Today, industry and environmental groups supporting EPA will file their oppositions to this request. The stay motions included the charge that EPA may not use Section 111(d) at all to curb pollution from existing power plants. Dan Farber and I …
CONTINUE READINGWhy Alberta’s Carbon Tax Matters
Combating Climate Change Will Require Reversing Three-Decade Trend of Political Economy
While Americans were preparing for our Thanksgiving, in the Great White North, a major new development occurred: the NDP (i.e. Social Democratic) government in Alberta — Canada’s major energy-producing province — announced an economy-wide carbon tax starting in 2017 and a cap on emissions from oil sands. This would be an aggressive move anywhere in the …
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CONTINUE READINGClean Power Plan Litigation Kick-Off
Flood of lawsuits follows publication of EPA rules to regulate power-plant GHGs
*Updated: Nov. 17, 2015* On Friday, October 23, 2015, the Federal Register formally published EPA’s rules to control greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act. I described the basics of the rules after EPA released the unofficial text in August. The final text of the rule to regulate new and modified …
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CONTINUE READINGAir quality and wildfire
We may need to burn more to get less smoke
One of the impacts of California’s difficult fire season has been air pollution. Fires produce smoke. Large wildfires produce a lot of smoke. And large wildfires in the southern Sierra Nevada produce smoke in the southern Central Valley – the part of the United States that already has some of the worst air quality in …
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