Climate Law Blog

Today, January 20, 2021, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law launched the Climate Reregulation Tracker to follow the Biden administration’s progress in undoing the Trump administration’s assault on climate change policy. Four years ago today—on the last Inauguration Day—the Sabin Center launched the Climate Deregulation Tracker, the first of what would become numerous online […]

This post was co-authored by the Sabin Center’s Romany Webb and Michael Panfil and Sarah Ladin of Environmental Defense Fund.  As the owners and operators of immense infrastructure, electric utilities are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Many electric utilities are already struggling to respond to higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more intense […]

By Daniel J. Metzger and Romany M. Webb Last week Vice President Pence expressed how “very proud” he is of the administration’s environmental record and declared that, if re-elected, President Trump will “take care of our environment and follow the science.” That would be a marked departure from the President’s first term. As documented in […]

By Romany Webb At 6:38pm on August 14, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO)—the entity that manages much of California’s electricity grid—ordered electric utilities to initiate temporary rolling service cuts. As a result, nearly half a million customers lost electricity, some for over two hours. The following evening, over 320,000 customers lost electricity for up […]

By Michael Burger and Hillary Aidun Last week the Sabin Center and the American Bar Association held an event on addressing landowner concerns in renewable energy siting. Wind and solar farms often spark siting battles between local residents who welcome renewable energy projects and their neighbors who are concerned about visual or other impacts. But […]

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 At the same time, EPA also rescinded the standard for volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions […]

Today, the Sabin Center filed an amicus brief on behalf of local government associations in support of state, city, environmental, and industry petitioners in Union of Concerned Scientists v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The lawsuit challenges Part One of the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles (SAFE) Rule, the Trump Administration’s effort to roll back […]

By Augusta Wilson* On Monday, May 18, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School submitted a joint letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to the agency’s Supplemental Notice regarding its proposed “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule. When the EPA proposed this rule […]

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@gmail.com. HERE ARE THE ADDITIONS TO THE CLIMATE CASE CHART SINCE UPDATE # 132. FEATURED CASE Fourth […]

An increasing number of U.S. cities are seeking to limit the flow of vehicular traffic in designated areas as a means to reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions from cars and trucks and to help achieve their municipal climate goals. The creation of these “low traffic zones,” or LTZs, can take a number of different […]