As the global community confronts the reality that a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is urgently required, a new class of climate change litigation is emerging. But what impact are these proceedings having?
The Trump administration issued oil and gas drilling permits during the most recent shutdown without approval or appropriations by Congress and without following procedures for public participation. Can the administration really do this? If not, how do environmentalists prevent this from happening in future shutdowns?
Whenever faced with the decision to declare a “healthful environment” or freedom from harmful contaminants as fundamental rights, federal courts have invariably rejected those claims.
Environmental groups and the State of California are up in arms over an EPA memo scrapping a decades-old Clean Air Act policy. Will the DC Circuit weigh in on the EPA’s use of “guidance” to drastically shift US regulatory policy?
While some companies celebrate the EPA’s deregulation efforts, other companies are starting to understand that economic and environmental efficiencies can run hand-in-hand. The Carbon Disclosure Project helps companies see the connection.
Whereas the Refugee Convention does not provide relief for climate change refugees like Teitiota, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) might.
Proposals to reform an emergency storage repository for crude oil known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (“SPR”) abound as President Trump and lawmakers react to changing oil market dynamics. As the policy goals and technical utilization of the SPR are evaluated, policymakers could benefit from additional assessment of the costs and benefits of SPR modifications that could imperil an essential national security asset.
It has now been just over 3 years since the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) first informed the public that Volkswagen, at the time the world's largest automaker, had installed ‘cheat devices’ designed to evade U.S. regulators in hundreds of thousands of their cars. Ultimately, the automaker paid a $2.8 billion criminal fine, and 9 executives and employees were charged with violating the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) and Title 18 of the United States code (the main criminal code of the federal government). Interestingly, though, no one was actually held criminally liable for the pollution itself.
