Federal Climate Policy
Never Give Up! Every Ton of Carbon We Can Cut Still Matters
It’s easy to be disheartened when we miss climate targets. But climate change isn’t a yes/no thing. It’s a matter of degree.
It’s easy to lose heart about our prospects for limiting climate change. The US has pulled out of international climate negotiations. Most of the countries that joined the Paris Agreement have missed targets , targets that weren’t aggressive enough in the first place. The 1.5 °C target is already basically out of reach. Is time to give up on slowing climate change and focus on adapting to it? The answer is no. Here’s why.
Climate change is a matter of degrees. That sounds like a truism or a pun, but it’s true in a deeper sense. There is no point past which further warming becomes irrelevant. degree, and every fraction of a degree makes things that much worse.
Policy Implications of Accelerating Warming
If warming is coming more quickly, we need to pick up the pace on policy responses.
There seems to be an emerging scientific consensus that the rate of global warming is rising. After screening out the effects of natural factors like El Niño, scientists have concluded that the pace of warming has roughly doubled since the 1970s. What does this tell us about policy? Some of the implications are more obvious than others, and at least one implication may be unsettling for some climate advocates. Most obviously, we need to accelerate our efforts to carbon emissions. We will be closing in on possible tipping points faster than expected. Climate impacts that we might have expected twenty years from now could hit in half that time.
CONTINUE READINGDissecting EPA’s Endangerment Repeal: Series Wrap-Up:
Here’s what you need to know to understand the upcoming legal battles.
Yesterday was the last of five Legal Planet posts on EPA’s repeal of the Endangerment Finding, which it based on legal arguments that it has no power to regulate vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases. The series began with a quick overview of the issues. The remaining posts focus on the reasons that EPA was right to issue the Endangerment Finding in the first place in 2009, the legal precedents supporting the Endangerment Finding. and the impact of the repeal on future climate actions. The bottom line is that EPA was right to issue the Endangerment Finding and wrong to repeal it.
CONTINUE READINGHas Trump Actually “Driven a Dagger Through the Heart” of Climate Policy?
Lee Zeldin
Don’t jump to conclusions based on the Administration’s spin operation.
there’s a good chance that the repeal of the Endangerment Finding will be reversed by the courts. That would ground federal climate policy even more firmly in the law, so the Administration is taking a gamble. Saying they’ve one is as premature as a roulette player who’s just put all their chips on one number announcing that they’re now rich before the wheel has even started turning. Even if the courts do uphold the repeal, a lot will depend on just what legal theory the judges adopt. Some legal theories would slam the door on efforts by future Democratic presidents. Others would leave room to move forward.
CONTINUE READINGThe Affirmative Case for Finding Endangerment
Despite hairsplitting by the current EPA, finding endangerment is a no-brainer.
or EPA to decide that vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions aren’t harmful is iike NASA deciding that the earth isn’t round after all. Over the next year or two, lawyers will be picking over EPA’s detailed legal arguments. Let’s not get mired in the weeds. It’s crazy that this issue is even being raised.
In 2007, the Supreme Court told EPA to do two things: (1) consider whether GHGs endanger human health and welfare, and (2) if the answer is yes, regulate vehicle emissions of GHGs. That’s exactly what EPA did. Nothing has changed in the meantime.
Hot Take on the Endangerment Repeal
It’s a tweaked version of arguments that the Supreme Court rejected in 2007.
EPA’s argument for repealing the Endangerment Finding is basically a rehash of legal arguments that were rejected by the Supreme Court in 2007. These arguments haven’t improved with age. Notably, EPA doesn’t dare contest the science.
CONTINUE READINGNightmare on Penn Ave (Part 2)
After a year of Trump 2.0, here’s how things stand.
Eight years ago almost to the day, I wrote a post titled, “One Year and Counting.” I was writing at the end of Trump’s first year in office. And here we are again, one year into a second Trump Administration. Trump’s basically deregulatory strategy has remained largely unchanged. But there are some notable differences in the situations then and now. I closed my 2017 post with this: “One characteristic of the Trump Administration is a ceaseless stream of controversies and dramas. But generally speaking, the amount of actual legal change has been much more limited, because the system is designed to provide checks on administrative and legislative action.” It remains to be seen how well those checks will function this time around.
CONTINUE READINGThe Imperious Presidency
Executive Orders by Biden and Trump speak volumes about their perspectives.
It’s not a surprise that Trump has little respect for expertise and immense antagonism toward those he views as his enemies. What’s striking, however, is that way that these attitudes leak into even the most formal government documents, where they shape the official justifications for presidential actions. To borrow a phrase from Justice Scalia, sometimes a wolf comes in sheep’s clothing. But “this wolf comes as a wolf.”
CONTINUE READINGDefunding the Energy Transition
The President Proposes Deep Cuts to Climate and Clean Energy Spending for FY 2026
On May 2nd, the White House released what is generally referred to as a “skinny” budget request outlining priorities for discretionary spending for fiscal year 2026. A full federal budget proposal is expected later this month. The “skinny” budget contains, by the White House’s calculations, $163 billion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts, which it argues …
Continue reading “Defunding the Energy Transition”
CONTINUE READING100 Days of Anti-Environmental Mayhem
A flood of anti-environmental initiatives threatens to undo decades of progress.
the Administration has withheld funding for clean technology, denounced the very idea of environmental justice, and begun a campaign to gut environmental agencies. And that’s only the first hundred days of Trump’s second term.How far Trump gets with this anti-environmental jihad will depend partly on the courts but mostly on politics. Events relating to the economy and provision of basic government services are likely to have as much impact on how things play out than anything specific to the environment.
CONTINUE READINGJoin Our Mailing List
Climate policy is changing rapidly. Stay in the loop with expert analysis via email Monday - Friday.
