Climate Law Blog

By Dena Adler, Jessica Wentz, and Romany Webb On Wednesday, June 19, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its so-called Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. The ACE rule repeals and replaces the 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP) which aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 30% below 2005 levels by […]

The Trump administration has undertaken a sweeping portfolio of actions aimed at weakening federal climate protections and promoting the development and use of fossil fuels. A new report from Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law takes a critical look at what this effort has actually accomplished. It concludes that the administration has […]

By Romany Webb Last Tuesday, June 4, the D.C. Circuit decided the latest in a string of cases challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s approval of new interstate natural gas pipelines. The case – Birckhead v. FERC – focused largely on FERC’s obligation to consider the climate change impacts of pipeline development, which has […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate@gmail.com. HERE ARE THE ADDITIONS TO THE CLIMATE CASE CHART SINCE UPDATE # 122 FEATURED CASE D.C. Circuit Upheld […]

The following is testimony submitted by Michael B. Gerrard, Faculty Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, before the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, Committee on Natural Resources, United States House of Representatives, on April 30, 2019. A video of the hearing is available here.  Thank you, Chairman Lowenthal, Ranking Member Gosar, […]

By Romany Webb Over the last decade, a spate of wildfires, hurricanes, and other storms have painfully illustrated the electricity system’s vulnerability to extreme weather. In 2018 alone, Hurricanes Florence and Michael each left over one million households and businesses in the southeast without electricity, while the Mendocino Complex Fire and others caused widespread electricity […]

By Dena Adler Earlier this month, the Sabin Center submitted a public comment on the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), stressing the document’s insufficient consideration of climate change impacts. At the end of 2017, Congress squeezed a provision […]

This week, the Sabin Center and a group of scientists with expertise on carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”) technologies submitted comments on EPA’s proposal to weaken the CO2 performance standards for new coal-fired power plants.  As discussed in a previous blog post, the current standards, which were promulgated in 2015, reflect the emissions reductions that […]

By Dena Adler The escalating costs of damages from extreme weather events, many exacerbated by climate change, makes poignant a question with a serious price tag: who will be on the hook to pay for climate damages? In 2018, a host of lawsuits wound their way through the courts seeking an answer, including several from […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts.  If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate@gmail.com. HERE ARE THE ADDITIONS TO THE CLIMATE CASE CHART SINCE UPDATE # 117. FEATURED CASE […]