News & Insights

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, from about 2,650 million tons in 2005, to 1,900 million tons in 2022, and 1,800 million tons in 2030–a […]

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 far different: the wood pellet industry has induced logging, spewed air pollution, and harmed human health in […]

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, many corporations and the lawyers that advise them don’t know what to do in the absence of such regulation. As an […]

It has been almost nine years since Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) stakeholders celebrated President Obama’s enactment on June 22, 2016, of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg). Because the road to amending TSCA was long (almost a decade), contentious, and complicated, stakeholders were perhaps more relieved that the […]

Great environmental success has come when agencies, industry and stakeholders have come together to render their divergent views mutually consistent. It is not always easy, and the ability to set aside historical narratives that cause one group to delegitimize the ideas of another requires a skill founded in risk management, consensus building, and the ability […]

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 thrust of these is to encourage the rapid development of fossil fuel resources and all associated infrastructure, and remove […]

With the incoming Trump administration poised for an attack on federal environmental regulations, states are quickly emerging with actions on climate change. On December 26, 2024, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the “Climate Change Superfund Act” (the “Climate Superfund Act” or the “Act”), which seeks to impose retroactive fees on fossil fuel […]

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 Law Center as a Professor from Practice on the full-time faculty. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity […]

The Diamond Alkali Superfund Site in Newark, New Jersey, which includes the 17-mile Lower Passaic River Study Area, may be one of the most expensive and hotly contested Superfund Sites in the country.  The remedy for the dioxin-contaminated river may cost as much as $2 billion by the time it is completed. The Newark site […]

Last week, in what almost certainly has to be the most fractured appellate decision in the history of the United States courts, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, affirmed via per curiam decision the 2021 District Court judgment in Environment Texas Citizen Lobby v. ExxonMobil Corporation.  Seventeen judges sat en banc. Nine […]

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, whether it be comments by President-elect Trump, or his nominations for cabinet […]

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 its state equivalents. These EISs are written at great expense and contain massive amounts of observational data about air […]