{"id":4245,"date":"2016-05-18T08:28:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T13:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/?p=4245"},"modified":"2016-06-09T13:20:19","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T18:20:19","slug":"massachusetts-supreme-court-orders-state-to-go-much-further-in-reducing-ghgs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2016\/05\/18\/massachusetts-supreme-court-orders-state-to-go-much-further-in-reducing-ghgs\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders State to Go Much Further in Reducing GHGs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><em>The <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/web.law.columbia.edu\/clinics\/environmental-law-clinic\"><em>Columbia Environmental Law Clinic<\/em><\/a><em> wins a critically important case involving the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.socialaw.com\/services\/slip-opinions\/slip-opinion-details\/isabel-kain-others-1-vs.-department-of-environmental-protection\">unanimous decision<\/a> ordering the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take additional measures to implement the <a href=\"https:\/\/malegislature.gov\/Laws\/SessionLaws\/Acts\/2008\/Chapter298\">2008 Global Warming Solutions Act<\/a>. Specifically, the Court held that DEP must impose volumetric limits on the aggregate greenhouse gas emissions from certain types of sources and that these limits must decline on an annual basis.\u00a0 The Columbia Environmental Law Clinic was one of the groups representing the plaintiffs in this case.<\/p>\n<p>The case involved a provision of the Global Warming Solutions Act requiring DEP to \u201cpromulgate regulations establishing a desired level of declining annual aggregate emission limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d DEP claimed that it had complied with this provision through several regulatory initiatives, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap and trade program. The court disagreed, finding that these initiatives did not satisfy the requirements of the Act because they did not entail the imposition of legally binding mass-based emission caps that declined on an annual basis. The court noted that two of the programs involved rate-based emission limitations, which were not sufficient for compliance because they did not ensure actual reductions in aggregate emissions.\u00a0 Thus, the court held that DEP must promulgate new regulations to implement this provision of the Act.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs had also argued that the requirement to limit \u201caggregate\u201d emissions from sources or source categories should be interpreted as requiring the establishment of annual statewide emission caps that cover all sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The court disagreed with this argument, holding that the Act only requires DEP to establish limits on aggregate emissions from \u201cmultiple\u201d sources, not all sources.<\/p>\n<p>The court concluded by noting that the regulatory programs cited by DEP \u201care important to the Commonwealth\u2019s overall scheme of reducing greenhouse gas emissions over time\u201d but more must be done to attain \u201cactual, measurable, and permanent emissions reductions\u201d required by the Act. It is now up to DEP to decide how to proceed with implementing its statutory mandates.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Supreme Judicial Court\u2019s decision in this case, Kain et al. v. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), is available <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.socialaw.com\/services\/slip-opinions\/slip-opinion-details\/isabel-kain-others-1-vs.-department-of-environmental-protection\"><em>here<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Columbia Environmental Law Clinic wins a critically important case involving the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts. Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released a unanimous decision ordering the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take additional measures to implement the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act. Specifically, the Court held that DEP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5673,9417],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-litigation","7":"category-state-law","8":"czr-hentry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders State to Go Much Further in Reducing GHGs - Climate Law Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2016\/05\/18\/massachusetts-supreme-court-orders-state-to-go-much-further-in-reducing-ghgs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders State to Go Much Further in Reducing GHGs - Climate Law Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Columbia Environmental Law Clinic wins a critically important case involving the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts. Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released a unanimous decision ordering the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take additional measures to implement the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act. 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