Climate Law Blog

By Romany Webb On Thursday, August 13, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule rescinding the new source performance standards for methane emissions from facilities used in the production, processing, transmission, and storage of oil and natural gas. At the same time, EPA also rescinded the standard for volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions […]

On Friday the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) unveiled new draft guidance on the consideration of climate change in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews. This is intended to replace the final CEQ guidance that was issued by the Obama administration in 2016 and subsequently revoked by President Trump. As with the 2016 […]

By Romany Webb The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) – the entity responsible for managing New York’s electric grid – is currently undertaking a major review to determine whether and how a carbon price could be integrated into wholesale electricity markets. This is widely seen as necessary to harmonize markets with state policies aimed […]

By Nadra Rahman and Jessica Wentz Federal climate regulations are currently under attack, in part due to the perception that these regulations will impose excessive costs on regulated industries and society as a whole. But according to federal projections, the benefits of these regulations would significantly outweigh the costs. In a new paper, we added […]

by Justin Gundlach A new working paper from the Sabin Center adds to discussions currently swirling around the prospect of a federal carbon tax. The paper–part of a larger project underway at the Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy–shines light on a set of practical considerations that other analyses have ignored, namely how existing […]

Jessica Wentz Associate Director and Fellow Yesterday, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) released the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) for the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The DPEIS accounts for the impacts of climate change on program activities. It does not, however, contain any discussion of […]

Jessica Wentz Associate Director and Fellow Tucked deep into the opening brief on procedural and record issues filed by opponents to the Clean Power Plan there is an important and under-reported development: The role of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) in cost-benefit analysis is now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Petitioners in […]