Every year, Thomson Reuters and West Publishing compile a set of significant and influential articles from a number of legal scholars who focus on land use and environmental law. The Land Use & Environment Law Review represents some of the best scholarship on these issues, and peer reviewers recently included five pieces on environmental law published in 2014 and 2015. 

Among the selected articles are two from CPR Member Scholar Hannah Wiseman, Professor at Florida State University College of Law, and one from Member Scholar Alejandro Camacho, Professor at the UC-Irvine School of Law. 

The reviewers also designated a longer list of authors and articles as finalists, and CPR Member Scholars were well represented. Robin Kundis Craig, Daniel Farber, Robert Glicksman, Dave Owen, Amy Sinden, and Wendy Wagner all had articles included on the finalist list. 

You can find both lists and links to the scholars' articles …

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Clean Power Plan (CPP) relies, in part, on a pollution reduction strategy – generation shifting – that is at issue in the ongoing lawsuit over the rule. Generation shifting involves increasing use of relatively clean natural gas and renewable energy and reducing use of relatively dirty and expensive coal-fired power plants. Although the technique has lowered power plant emissions significantly in recent years, opponents of the CPP have argued in legal briefs that section 111 of the Clean Air Act precludes relying on generation shifting to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They claim the technique somehow does not lead to reductions at a pollution source, but their argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Generation shifting does reduce emissions at each pollution source that takes advantage of the technique and therefore passes muster. 

Some explanation of section 111 and the CPP …

The Clean Power Plan has been widely touted as significant because it regulates the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the United States – the electric power industry. Its significance, however, goes beyond U.S. CO₂ emissions because it serves as the linchpin of international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in order to avoid dangerous climate disruption. The rule gave the Obama administration sufficient credibility to persuade the Chinese to pledge limits on their own greenhouse gas emissions for the first time and paved the way for worldwide pledges of significant emission reductions at the Paris Conference last December. If the U.S. fails to promptly implement this rule because of an unfavorable judicial ruling, the Paris agreement could unravel, as developing countries do not consider it equitable to demand reductions from them without significant reductions by the United States and other wealthy countries …

September 2, 2011, was a lot like today, the Friday before a long holiday weekend.  While many were already turning their attention to backyard barbecues and afternoon naps in hammocks, the then-Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Cass Sunstein, the controversial official charged with supervising federal regulatory activities, dropped a bombshell. In a notice known as a “return letter,” Sunstein publicly announced that President Obama was rejecting what would have been one of the most important public safeguards during his time in office: the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pending rule to strengthen the national air quality standard for harmful ozone pollution. It was, and remains, one of the darkest days of Obama’s time in office, at least where public health and environmental protection are concerned.

Mountains of scientific evidence confirm that ozone pollution is nasty stuff, and high levels …

Next Wednesday, Public Citizen is holding an important event that aims to promote greater transparency in the presidential transition process. The transition process is among the most critical events in our constitutional system of democracy. As the Center for Presidential Transition lays out in detail in its Presidential Transition Guide, this process is where the incoming president's policy agenda is formulated, where candidates for key administrative posts are selected, and where at least the first year of budget priorities are translated into hard numbers. 

When it comes to policy formulation, personnel selection, and budget number crunching, the stakes in this year's presidential transition may be the highest in recent memory. With at least two more years of divided government likely, administrative policymaking, as distinct from legislation, will continue to take on a dominant role. Bottom line: The agenda the next president adopts, and the appointees …

It's common knowledge that our energy choices impact the planet's climate, but less widely known is how climate change and its intensified storms, heat waves, droughts, and water shortages affect our energy grid. Already vulnerable, the grid can suffer catastrophic damage when a storm like Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy strikes. 

In an Aug. 26 article in Slate, Center for Progressive Reform Board President Rob Verchick explores these vulnerabilities and connects the dots between climate change and the grid. He writes:

From rancid food to emergency-room nightmares, communities take a punch when the lights go out. The nation's aging power grid leaves us very susceptible to such risks. And the growing intensity of floods and storms on account of climate change make things even worse.

We hear a lot about how energy policy will affect climate impacts. Less appreciated, but equally important, are the …

Over the course of the last few decades, one of the great communications challenges facing progressives has been, and continues to be, how we talk about climate change. The difficulty in persuading politicians and the public about the need for action isn’t just that the effort has run head-long into a massive and well-funded industry campaign designed to sow confusion. It’s also that the policy changes needed to  make a difference fairly drip with disruption of one sort or another — new and different sources of energy, impacts on local industry and job markets, conservation of energy that affects individual behavior and more.

Our current dialogue about climate change understandably reflects its origins in the scientific and environmental communities. Proponents of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including CPR’s scholars and staff, often point out the vast potential damage to the environment, and the corresponding threats to …

Yesterday, several CPR Member Scholars and staff formally submitted comments on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) proposed rule to limit the use of forced arbitration agreements in consumer contracts for financial products like credit cards and bank accounts. 

CPR Member Scholars and staff have been tracking this rulemaking for over a year and in May 2016 published a report that assessed several key issues shortly before the CFPB released its proposal. In particular, our report evaluated the CFPB's preliminary outline for the rule and a comprehensive study that the agency conducted to inform the rulemaking's provisions. Among other things, the report highlighted the important role of the civil justice system in reinforcing and complementing the U.S. regulatory system. By denying citizens access to the courts, forced arbitration effectively undermines the proper functioning of the civil justice system, thereby weakening regulatory programs aimed …

In a new op-ed published in the Raleigh News & Observer, Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar and Board Member Sidney Shapiro examines two recent examples of politics getting in the way of protecting people and the environment in North Carolina. As he explains, the politicization of science by state officials has serious ramifications for the ability of agencies and scientists to safeguard residents from toxic chemicals, rising sea levels, and more. 

The following is an excerpt from the op-ed:

Recently, two prominent scientific experts resigned from the North Carolina government to protest the state's disregard for scientific input in state policy.

Dr. Megan Davies, a state epidemiologist, resigned to protest state environmental officials' rejection of stringent testing standards to determine the safety of private drinking water wells near coal ash ponds that have leaked dangerous chemicals into the water supply. Earlier, Dr. Stan Riggs, a …