Energy

283 posts

The Electric Grid and Its Regulators—FERC and State Public Utility Commissions, a New Chapter in the Sabin Center’s Handbook, Legal Tools For Climate Adaptation Advocacy

Payal Nanavati Columbia Law School Class of ‘17 Climate change has already begun to force elements of the electric grid to operate in conditions materially different from those for which they were designed. Persistent high temperatures, heavy or reduced precipitation, extreme weather events, and sea-level rise can all affect grid […]

8th Circuit rules Minnesota can’t proscribe purchase of electricity from new coal-fired power plants, judges disagree as to why

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 […]

Upstream and Downstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Fossil Fuel Production and Transportation: New Working Paper Examines Scope of Federal Analysis Required under NEPA

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 […]

Another RGGI Raid? New York State Senate Proposes Pulling $138 million from the RGGI Fund

Jessica Wentz Associate  Director and Fellow On March 14, the New York State Senate released a FY 2017 budget proposal that would divert $138 million from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction proceeds to the state budget, including $23 million to the general fund, $100 million to subsidize the […]

BOEM Ignores Downstream Emissions and Social Cost of Carbon in EIS for Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program

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, […]

Climate Litigation Charts: February 2016 Update

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 […]

GHG Impacts From Coal Mining: Federal Assessment Critiqued By Sabin Center

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 […]