energy policy

The Case that Wouldn’t Die

The Juliana plaintiffs make a final effort to resurrect their case.

The district judge contemplates a wide-ranging trial about broad climate and energy policies, after which she would opine on their legality. The Supreme Court will likely think that putting an  immense swathe of government policy on trial also violates the separation of powers — especially in a case where they are  deeply skeptical of the underlying constitutional claim.

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Electric Shared Mobility:

Program Design Elements Can Produce More Equitable, Durable, and Successful Projects

Shared mobility—an umbrella term for any transportation mode shared among multiple passengers—has the potential to accelerate transportation electrification, air quality, and greenhouse gas reduction goals, meet the needs of underserved communities that most lack mobility access, and advance broader mobility equity goals. CLEE’s report, Electric Shared Mobility: California Lessons Learned for Equity in Program Design, …

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In Their Own Words: Climate Policy and the Party Platforms

The GOP and Democratic Platforms take starkly different approaches.

The two major parties have very different views about energy policy and climate change. Here are their official views, in their own language. Compare and contrast!

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Hillary Clinton, Climate Change, and the ‘Sliding Doors’ of History

Here’s what could have happened instead of Trump’s crusade against climate action, if Clinton had squeaked out a victory in 2016.

If Hillary Clinton had won, we would be much further along today in the battle to cut carbon emissions and control climate change. Instead, Trump was a climate disaster. The bottom line: Elections do matter. Not just for politicians but for all of us.

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Not All Community Benefits Are Created Equal

Technical Assistance for Underserved, Environmental Justice, and Tribal Communities Will Be Key to Ensuring Meaningful California Offshore Wind CBAs

CLEE has just released a new report, Offshore Wind & Community Benefits Agreements in California: CBA Examples, detailing the CBA and other community provisions in California’s offshore wind leases, as well as examples of CBA precursors and models from other industries. Read it here. As California offshore wind moves forward, there are opportunities for underserved, …

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Ranking the Candidates’ Focus on Energy & Climate

Some campaign websites mention these issues only in passing. Others went into more detail.

I thought it would be helpful to provide some kind of objective measure of how much various candidates focus on energy and climate. I based this on how extensively they discuss these issues on their websites. By this ranking, Biden came in first — surprisingly, ahead of progressives Jill Stein and Cornel West. Also surprisingly, …

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Climate Change and “The Chosen One”

The plan of this messianic figure is clear — expanding fossil fuels and eliminating climate action.

A leading presidential candidate recently reposted a video that called him  the “Chosen One,” echoing the view of many of his followers that God has chosen him to lead the country. “And on June 14, 1946,” the video tells us, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God …

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Energy Price Shocks and the Failures of Neoliberalism

Stuart Rankin, Europe at Night in 2012 https://www.flickr.com/photos/24354425@N03/15775721086 (Creative Commons CC BY-NC 2.0)

Why it’s time to rethink electricity market design to ensure a clean and equitable energy future

This post was originally published on the Law and Political Economy blog. The global energy price shocks of the past two years have made it painfully clear that energy cannot be treated as an ordinary commodity and that many governments have been insufficiently attentive to energy security. Given its dependence on Russian gas, the EU has …

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Why We Can’t Wait

In climate policy, delay is deadly.

There are a lot of complaints about the very real flaws in the Inflation Reduction Act, tied with arguments that we should wait until we can do something better. In climate policy, however, waiting is dangerous.  We’ve already delayed far too long. Further delay means having to cut emission much more rapidly to make up …

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Good News from “Down Under”

Australia’s election signals a welcome change in climate policy.

Australia has had a change of government. The Liberal Party — conservative  in everything but name — lost control of the federal government to Labor.   Australia was recently ranked last out of sixty countries in climate policy.The victorious Labor candidate told his supporters, “Together we can end the climate wars. Together we can take advantage of …

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