NEPA
NEPA and Loper Deference
The CEQ regulations will continue to receive deference. The question is how much.
The Supreme Court already has a NEPA case on its docket for next year. That should give the Court the chance to clarify Loper as well as the scope of CEQ’s authority.
CONTINUE READINGNEPA in the Supreme Court (Part III)
Our guide to understanding how causation applies for NEPA reviews.
Overall, the Supreme Court has articulated a functional approach that is based on the purposes of NEPA, based on the structure and text of the statute. Today’s post will lay the foundation by discussing NEPA’s purposes and how they differ from those of another area of law often used as an analogy, tort law
CONTINUE READINGNEPA in the Supreme Court (Part I)
A pending case could mean radical retrenchment of a foundational environmental law.
In what could turn out to be another loss for environmental protection in the Supreme Court, the Court is about to decide a major case about the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, has important implications for issues such as whether NEPA covers climate change impacts.
CONTINUE READINGMrs. Palsgraf, Meet Enviromental Law
A case involving a freakish accident with fireworks casts a big shadow in environmental law.
Today in my first-year Torts class, I teach the Palsgraf case, one of those cases that every lawyer knows by heart. More about Palsgraf in a moment. It’s a tort case, so it won’t surprise you that oil companies use similar arguments against having to pay damages for climate change. But it may be more …
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CONTINUE READINGJustin Pidot: Manchin’s Latest and Last Run at Promoting Fossil Fuels through a Permitting Reform Bill
His proposal is a bad deal on climate and an afront to environmental justice
Last week, Senator Manchin unveiled his latest permitting bill, negotiated with Senator Barrasso and set to be marked up by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Wednesday. After recently completing a 3 ½ year stint as general counsel at the White House Counsel of Environmental Quality, I recognize that continuing to improve …
CONTINUE READING35 Major Climate Initiatives Under Biden
By any measure, it has been an eventful four years for climate policy, with billions in spending and many major regulations finalized. Here’s a timeline of the Top 30 actions.
In light of President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race yesterday, we thought it was appropriate to update this piece about the climate legacy of the Biden-Harris Administration. In his four years in office, Donald Trump rolled back essentially every existing federal policy to limit climate change. The picture under the Biden Administration has …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Ten Most Important U.S. Environmental Laws
Some of the choices may surprise you.
What are America’s most important environmental laws? Some are familiar, such as the federal air and water pollution laws, and the Endangered Species Act. But there are other people rarely hear about — even in environmental law courses — but have done a lot to protect the environment.
CONTINUE READINGThe 2023 NEPA Rewrite and the Supreme Court’s New Climate Case
NEPA isn’t a common law subject. What the statute says matters more than pre-2023 judicial opinions.
When it amended NEPA in 2023, Congress squarely rejected language that would have constricted the definition of environmental impacts. The Supreme Court needs to give that language full effect, not obsess about the meaning of pre-2023 judicial opinions.The Supreme Court shouldn’t give advocates of narrowing NEPA a victory that they were unable to get through the legislative process.
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s War on Environmental Protection: A Chronology
Yes, there were over 100 environmental rollbacks. Here are the biggest.
From when he took office to the day he left, Trump lead a steady drumbeat of environmental rollback after environmental rollback. His goals: eliminate limits on pollution from fossil fuels and end protection of public lands.
CONTINUE READINGNEPA in the Ninth
Can an agency just shortcut the whole process? The 9th Circuit says no.
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit decided a NEPA case that discusses two interesting issues. But what’s most striking isn’t what the court did discuss but what it didn’t mention : the fact that last year’s NEPA amendments speaks directly to one of those issues. Apparently the word that NEPA was extensively amended a year ago …
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