Litigation
What is jurisdiction, and why is it important to climate change litigation?
Local actors seek climate change damages from the biggest fossil fuel companies through state law litigation In the wake of West Virginia v. EPA and the Supreme Court’s deregulatory trend, state action remains an avenue for climate change adaptation and mitigation. While the specter of the major questions doctrine hampers most federal agency actions to …
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CONTINUE READINGDo Trump-Appointed Judges Differ when Deciding Environmental Cases?
Student analysis identifies disparities in judicial outcomes
(This post was authored by Grayson Peters, a JD candidate at Berkeley Law and CLEE research assistant.) Do federal judges appointed by former President Trump rule differently in environmental disputes than judges appointed by other presidents? An analysis by two Berkeley Law students finds that they do in a few key areas of judicial decision-making. …
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CONTINUE READINGHappy 50th Anniversary, Federal Clean Water Act
One of America’s Foundational Environmental Laws Has Proven Transformational, But Requires Updating a Half-Century Later
The Clean Water Act (CWA), one of the nation’s most important environmental laws, is 50 years old today. It’s proven to be one of the most successful of America’s bedrock federal environmental statutes. But the CWA is far from perfect, needs some important updating, and will probably never fully achieve the aspirational goals Congress proclaimed …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Do Pig Pens Have To Do With Environmental Law?
Constitutional Challenge to California’s Animal Welfare Law Could Have Profound Impacts on State’s Environmental Laws
Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in an animal welfare case from California that could have profound, negative impacts on a host of the Golden State’s environmental laws and policies. The case is National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, No. 21-468. The National Pork Producers Council litigation arises from an initiative measure–Proposition …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the First Monday in October, the Sacketts Head to the Supreme Court a Second Time
Sackett v. EPA–the Most Important Environmental Case on the Justices’ Current Docket–Will Answer the Key Question of How Far Federal Wetlands Regulation Extends Under the Clean Water Act
Today the U.S. Supreme Court formally begins its 2022-23 Term. First up on the justices’ docket this morning is a major environmental case: Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 21-454. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA). Over the past half-century, no single CWA issue has proven more contentious and …
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and the Major Question Doctrine
Just because a regulation involves climate change, that doesn’t make it a major question.
Red State AGs are preparing to go to town with the West Virginia case. They seem to think that everything involving climate change automatically becomes a major question. That’s simply wrong. The doctrine is more nuanced. Recall that the Supreme Court struck down OSHA’s vaccine mandate, essentially on major questions grounds, but the majority found …
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CONTINUE READINGEPA’s Best Option: Co-Firing
Yesterday’s decision leaves open a powerful regulatory tool.
What can EPA do to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants after yesterday’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA? The decision clearly ruled out any direct mandate to shift generation from coal generators to cleaner power generators. But the Supreme Court didn’t endorse Trump’s ultra-limited interpretation of the law either. This leaves EPA with …
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CONTINUE READINGA Beautiful Day for Bumblefish?
A California court just ruled that bumblebees are fish. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.
A California appeals court ruled last week that bumblebees are fish and are therefore protected by the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). That may sound ridiculous, but there’s actually a convoluted legal argument to support the court. That argument does justify giving the CESA some extra coverage beyond what we would ordinarily classify as fish. …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Cohesive Are the Conservative Justices?
Signs of internal tensions within the conservative supermajority could be good news for environmental protection.
Back in the days of the Soviet Union, people known as Kremlinologists used to try to figure out what was going on behind the scenes by seeing who was standing next to whom in official photos. We have a bit more visibility into the Supreme Court, but only a bit. That being said, there are …
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CONTINUE READINGSmoke But No Fire
No, the draft Supreme Court abortion decision doesn’t threaten the standing of environmental groups
The implications for environmental law are far from being the most important aspect of the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade. The aggressiveness of the opinion in the Dobbs case signals a kind of activism that is definitely worrisome in other areas. At the end of last week, however, there …
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