Several weeks ago, Seth Jaffe posted a piece on this blog about the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. I disagree with him. If you want to reduce the overall cost to the economy of the…
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/ Environmental Law
As they do every year, male lesser prairie-chickens gathered this Spring on the 48,000-acre Gardiner Angus Ranch in Ashland, Kansas for their ritual mating dance to attract females. The Gardiner Ranch has some of the best…
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/ Agriculture, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
On May 29, 2025, the Supreme Court—minus recused Justice Neil Gorsuch—decided Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the first major NEPA dispute before the Court in 20 years. It’s a really big deal—coverage is…
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/ Administrative Law, Environmental Law, Transportation, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
On March 25, 2025, the University of Southern California’s (USC’s) Public Exchange and independent advisor Solar Aquagrid announced the California Solar Canal Initiative, a seven-university project to assess the technological,…
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/ Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
In Port Arthur Community Action Network (PACAN) v. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Texas Supreme Court clarified the statutory definition of “Best Available Control Technology”(BACT) under the Texas Clean Air Act…
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/ Administrative Law, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law
In 2015, EPA proposed a rule requiring states to develop plans to cut CO2 emissions from the power sector—the Clean Power Plan (“CPP”). EPA explained the rule would result in “significant emission reductions” for that sector,…
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/ Administrative Law, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
The industrial wood pellet industry in the U.S. manufactures and exports wood pellets to burn in power plants to produce electricity, and this has been praised as a climate solution, a source of renewable energy. The truth is…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Government Contracting, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
Today in the United States, there is no federal comprehensive statute addressing climate change. With the Trump Administration now in power, it is doubtful that any such statute will be forthcoming anytime soon. Unfortunately,…
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/ Business Organizations, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
On the evening of the second inauguration of President Trump, the White House released a flurry of executive orders on a wide range of subjects. Several of them specifically concerned energy and the environment. The general…
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/ Administrative Law, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
Happy new year, ACOEL colleagues and friends! Following (nearly) four years in the Biden Administration serving as Associate Administrator for Policy at EPA, I am happy to be back in my teaching role at Georgetown University…
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/ Administrative Law, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
Let me state this at the outset. I am a lifelong ACLU Liberal Democrat who has never voted for a Republican. Thus, the results of the election on November 5th put me in a deep funk. Nothing that has happened since that time,…
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/ Constitutional Law, Elections & Politics, Environmental Law, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
Back in 2003, Michael Herz and I wrote an article calling for the creation of an online, word searchable database of environmental impact statements that had been prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and…
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/ Commercial Law & Contracts, Environmental Law, Government Contracting, Science, Computers, & Technology, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
In the last week of August, the Biden administration finalized protection of 28 million acres of federal land and water in Alaska that is critical for birds, fish, caribou, and the communities that rely on them. That’s an area…
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/ Environmental Law, Indigenous Peoples, Zoning, Planning & Land Use
On July 18, 2024, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that environmental groups were entitled to intervene in a case challenging the lawfulness of a greenhouse gas regulation because the state’s attorneys failed to raise the…
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/ Constitutional Law, Energy & Utilities, Environmental Law
In the 1967 movie “The Graduate,” a family friend famously tells the title character “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it.” Well, those of us engaged in…
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/ Consumer Protection, Environmental Law, Health, Science, Computers, & Technology
