Climate Law Blog

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 Jessica Wentz On Tuesday, August 21, EPA published a proposed rule to replace the Clean Power Plan. The proposal, entitled the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” would establish a framework for controlling CO2 emissions from existing power plants which is significantly less effective and environmentally protective than its predecessor. Here are six important things to know […]

by Justin Gundlach As a spate of disasters in the past few months has made painfully clear to people in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and northern California, designing the electric grid to be reliable at all times requires anticipating and preparing for destructive hazards that can interrupt its operation. That is, reliability requires resilience, […]

Each month, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP (APKS) 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 at gmail dot com. In June, the Sabin Center, in […]

by Romany Webb and Justin Gundlach There has been much talk in recent weeks about pricing carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this month, a group of former Republican cabinet members proposed adoption of a nationwide carbon price, starting at $40 per ton. That seems unlikely, however. Even the proposal’s main architect, former Secretary […]

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 at gmail dot com. Here are the additions to the U.S. Climate Litigation […]

Last week saw the opening of the 71st session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In his inaugural address, incoming General Assembly President Peter Thompson declared that the session would focus on advancing the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in September 2015. The SDGs form part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable […]

Justin Gundlach Climate Law Fellow As round after round has passed in the political and legal struggle at the federal level over regulating sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, states have rushed in to try to fill the void. Minnesota sought to do so in 2007 when it passed the Next Generation Energy Act. That […]

The Sabin Center has recently posted a working paper, Downstream and Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Proper Scope of NEPA Review.  The paper was co-authored by Executive Director Michael Burger and Associate Director and Fellow Jessica Wentz and will be published in the Fall 2016 edition of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. The paper explores […]

Last week marked an important shift in executive policy on fossil fuel leasing: the Interior Department announced a moratorium on new leases for coal mined from federal lands, pending a comprehensive reexamination of the decades-old coal leasing program. Interior will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to examine how the coal leasing program can […]