Climate Law Blog

by Cathy Li The Center for Climate Change Law has compiled a database examining the treatment of water-related issues in all Final Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) reported to EPA from January 1 to September 30, 2012.  The database, available here, comprised of 149 FEISs, details the extent to which federal agencies address topics related to [...]

            CCCL has published a Hydraulic Fracturing Litigation Digest that summarizes litigation with underlying claims stemming from the hydraulic fracturing process and  provides an index of the cases organized by central legal issues. The Digest is structured to provide a view of litigation in each relevant State as well as a view of litigation at [...]

by Professor Teresa Parejo Navaja, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Royal Legislative Decree number 1/2008, of 11th January, adopting the revised text of the Impact Assessment of projects Law (RTIAL) gathers, in one single act, for the sake of the principle of legal certainty (though the RTIAL has already been amended by Law 6/2010, of 24th [...]

by J. Cullen Howe New updates from December to the Center for Climate Change Law and Arnold & Porter Climate Case Chart.  Find the complete chart here. FEATURED DECISION Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corporation (9th Cir. Nov. 11, 2012):  added to the “common law claims” slide.  The Ninth Circuit denied a motion for [...]

By Katee Kline, Legal Intern On July 24, the Department of the Interior released a final programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) identifying prime areas for solar development, approving seventeen large-scale energy projects on public lands, and outlining the procedure for approval of similar projects.  The PEIS, authored by the DOI’s Bureau of Land Management and the [...]

By Patrick Woolsey, CCCL Intern Federal agencies have begun to incorporate consideration of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions into the environmental impact statements (EISs) which they are required to produce under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, agencies have developed widely varying procedures for addressing the topic, as demonstrated in a new report [...]

By Adam Riedel, CCCL Associate Director Environmental impact statements (EISs) should analyze the potential for energy efficiency to reduce the adverse impacts of new projects, to make the projects smaller, or to provide more benign alternatives.  The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its state counterparts require EISs for major actions, and provide numerous opportunities [...]

By Patrick Woolsey, CCCL Intern The issue of sea level rise (SLR) related to climate change is increasingly being addressed in federal environmental impact statements (EISs) for coastal projects. As described in a previous post, the Center for Climate Change Law (CCCL) has prepared a database of EISs that address climate change-related impacts. The database [...]

By Patrick Woolsey, CCCL Intern U.S. Government agencies have begun to incorporate consideration of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions into the environmental impact statements (EISs) which they are required to produce under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, federal agencies have developed widely varying procedures for addressing the topic. The Center for Climate [...]

by Daniel Firger Associate Director NOTE: This blog post is excerpted from a new report published on July 28, 2011 by the Columbia Center for Climate Change Law. The full report can be downloaded here (PDF). Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, releasing far higher levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and conventional air pollutants—including sulfur [...]