Climate Law Blog

By Jessica Wentz On December 20, the City of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County filed separate lawsuits in California Superior Court seeking to hold 29 fossil fuel companies accountable for their contribution to climate change. In doing so, they joined five other Californian local governments that have filed similar lawsuits in the past year. […]

On June 14, an Arizona trial court ruled that the University of Arizona must turn over more than a decade of university climate scientists’ emails to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (“E&E”), a group that, in its own words, “pepper[s] universities around the country” with open records requests as part of a mission of […]

On November 19, the Washington State Superior Court issued a decision in which it affirmed that climate change affects public trust resources in the state, but ultimately held that the state was fulfilling its public trust obligations by engaging in rulemaking to establish more comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) standards. The decision was a partial victory […]

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 Shelley Welton, Deputy Director and Fellow The lawsuit of Alec L. and several other young climate change activists was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today. In Alec L. et al. v. Lisa P. Jackson et al., 11-cv-02235 (D.D.C. 2012), five teenagers and children joined the groups Kids vs. […]

By Julia Dobtsis, Fall 2011 CCCL Extern The Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School has added an energy facility litigation database  to its research resources. This new resource collects and organizes in one central database energy cases spanning the years 2005 through 2011, and contains a total of approximately 2000 decisions from […]

Laura Mulry Fellow April 2011 was an eventful month for massive solar projects in California and their unlikely opponent:  the desert tortoise. As climate change, overpopulation, and development place ever more plant and animal species at risk of extinction, prominent environmental groups, Native Americans, and local residents have brought a string of lawsuits to stop […]

By Julia Ciardullo Fellow On April 19, 2011, the same day the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in American Electric Power Co. Inc., et al., v. Connecticut, et al., the Supreme Court of Virginia heard oral arguments in a less well known climate-related case, AES Corp. v. Steadfast Insurance Co. (No. 100764). The […]

On May 4, 2011 a group of five teenager plaintiffs, together with two non-profit environmental groups, filed suit against the federal government in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California, in San Francisco. The complaint (PDF), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, contains only one cause of action: violation of the Public Trust […]

Gregory E. Wannier Deputy Director As discussed previously, implementation of EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations necessitates a large program of regulation under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program.  EPA has attempted to give states authority to implement these changes, but not all parties have been compliant.  A series of EPA rules passed […]