Energy

299 posts

Single oil and gas well

Legacy Liabilities for Oil and Gas Wells under the Mineral Leasing Act: New Sabin Center Report

The Sabin Center’s newest publication, Legacy Liabilities for Oil and Gas Wells under the Mineral Leasing Act, examines the laws and regulations that allow the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) to pursue the prior owners and operators of oil and gas wells on federal land for the costs of plugging those […]

Interior Clears a Path for Fossil Fuel Development without Environmental Review

Yesterday, the Department of the Interior published a press release announcing the establishment of emergency permitting procedures to facilitate the rapid development of fossil fuel resources. Interior takes this action to fulfill a White House directive to rely on any and all emergency authorities to spur domestic energy production in […]

Michigan Court of Appeals Considers Challenge to New Process for Siting Renewables

Over the last five years, several states, including New York (2020), California (2022), Illinois (2023), and Michigan (2023) have adopted comprehensive permitting reforms that curtail the power of local governments to block development of large-scale renewable energy projects. In two states, New York and Michigan, local governments have sued to […]

Solar for All Implementation in 2025

Solar for All Implementation in 2025 Following his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to freeze the $7 billion Solar for All (SfA) program created via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). SfA represents a massive investment in residential solar […]

Demystifying President Trump’s “National Energy Emergency” and the Scope of Emergency Authority

It has been just a few weeks since President Donald J. Trump returned to the White House and, wow, what a whirlwind it has been. In the midst of the constitutional extreme event brought on by the administration, this blog post seeks to do one thing: review the emergency authorities […]

Guest Blog: Powering Data Centers with Clean Energy: Google’s Clean Transition Tariff

  The rising interest in artificial intelligence and data centers has sparked discussions on how to meet the immense power demand from data centers in a carbon-responsible manner. Many data center operators have 100% clean energy pledges, but regulatory barriers can make meeting these goals challenging. This is particularly true […]

Offshore Drilling Rig, Santa Barbara, CA, 6 December, 2011. Wikimedia Commons User TheConduqtor, CC3.0

Enforcing Legacy Environmental Liabilities for Offshore Oil and Gas Infrastructure

The Sabin Center’s newest publication, Enforcing Legacy Environmental Liabilities on the Outer Continental Shelf, examines legal strategies to hold the former owners of offshore oil and gas infrastructure, like rigs, wells, and pipelines, liable for the costs of “decommissioning” their facilities—plugging wells, removing offshore installations, and generally making the site […]