Virginia's Youngkin Didn't Major in Environmental Economics
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) recently made a statement bashing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the East Coast's regional cap-and-trade program intended to reduce climate pollution and energy costs for low-income households. In attacking the program, Youngkin repeated questionable claims about its costs, impacts, and benefits and made clear his desire to move the Commonwealth backwards on climate policy and the clean energy transition.
Virginia joined RGGI to meet the goals outlined in the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) and Environmental Justice Act (EJA), which were passed in 2020. Funds generated through RGGI are directed toward critical energy efficiency programs for low-income households and flood prevention.
Youngkin has long expressed interest in removing Virginia from RGGI and, through his recent executive order, began his attempt to officially leave the program. The order requires the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to conduct an analysis of the initiative's effectiveness in meeting its goals, namely, emissions reductions and cost savings.
Despite the resulting report's frequent warning that "there is insufficient data to determine the impact of the … RGGI in reducing CO2 emissions," Youngkin remains adamant that it will fail to do so because it was "unnecessary" in the first place …
This post was originally published on Legal Planet. Reprinted with permission.
The Biden administration is slowly grinding away at an important regulatory task: reconsidering the air quality standards for particulates and ozone. Setting those standards is an arduous and time-consuming process, requiring consideration of reams of technical data. For instance, a preliminary staff report on fine particulates (PM2.5) is over 600 pages long. When the process is done, the result will not only be better protection of public health. It will also be a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming agents.
Quick legal background: The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set national ambient air quality standards or NAAQS (pronounced "knacks"). They are supposed to be set at a level that, "allowing an adequate margin of safety, are requisite to protect the public health." They're supposed to be revised every five …
A couple of weeks ago, I traveled back to my home state to accept an award on behalf of the Center for Progressive Reform. The first-ever De Prey Peace Awards, named for Sheboygan, Wisconsin, peace activist Ceil De Prey, honor individuals and organizations whose work, volunteerism, and advocacy contribute to peace, a stronger democracy, and a better, more inclusive world for future generations.
Over the course of her life, De Prey has advocated for peace and worked to improve the lives of those around her. This included her past work as a medical researcher and volunteer efforts in every community she lived in. In just one example, for many years, First Congregational United Church of Christ of Sheboygan served what it called “Ceil’s Meal,” which brought together area residents from all walks of life to share meals. Many of the dishes featured at the events were …
Women’s History Month isn’t just a time to recognize achievements made throughout the decades to advance women’s rights and demand equity. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate women making history today, the ones in our unwritten history books.
For example, U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, if confirmed, will be the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. Judge Jackson, a former clerk for retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, graduated from Harvard Law School and served as a federal district and appellate court judge in Washington, D.C. Before serving as a judge, she worked for two years as a federal public defender, a vitally important role and an experience that few judges share. Indeed, she would be the first Supreme Court justice to ever have held such a position.
Shalanda Baker, a Member Scholar on leave …
This post was originally published on Legal Planet. Reprinted with permission.
In describing cost-benefit analysis to students, I've often told them that the "cost" side of the equation is pretty simple. And it does seem simple: just get some engineers to figure out how industry can comply and run some spreadsheets of the costs. But this seemingly simple calculation turns out to be riddled with uncertainties, particularly when you're talking about regulating the energy industry. Those uncertainties need more attention in designing regulations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confronted some of these issues recently in its reevaluation of a regulation limiting mercury emissions from coal power plants. (You might wonder why EPA was taking this look backwards; the reason was basically that the U.S. Supreme Court told them to do so.) In 2011, EPA had estimated that the compliance cost would work out to …
This op-ed was originally published by Bloomberg Law. Reproduced with permission. Published March 17, 2022. Copyright 2022 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. 800-372-1033. For further use, please visit http://www.bna.com/copyright-permission-request/
In the wake of recent high-profile electric power failures, numerous policymakers and politicians have asserted an inherent tension between the aims of clean energy and grid reliability. One Texas regulator declared that the best response to the hundreds of deaths caused by last year’s blackouts was for the state never to build another wind turbine again—even though the failure to weatherize natural gas infrastructure has been diagnosed as the blackouts’ primary cause.
At the same time, large utilities such as Duke Energy have proposed major new investments in natural gas generation, citing the need for reliability.
These calls for new fossil fuel investments in the name of reliability are a dangerous …
This is the first post in a series on climate justice in California.
State officials in California are leading an extensive multisector planning effort to develop the 2022 Scoping Plan, the third update to California’s climate mitigation strategy. The new plan will outline a pathway for statewide action toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions (i.e., carbon neutrality) no later than 2045.
California first established its distinctive planning approach for developing coordinated emissions reduction measures that also advance the state’s other climate and environmental justice goals under the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006 (AB32).
AB32 also established the first statewide emissions target limiting greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and charged the California Air Resources Board (CARB) with developing and adopting a new scoping plan every five years. The first scoping plan was developed in …
This post was originally published on Legal Planet. Reprinted with permission.
On March 11, there were two seismic shocks in the world of gas pipeline regulation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has spent years resisting pressure to change the way it licenses new gas pipelines. The whole point of a natural gas pipeline is to deliver the gas to users who will burn it, thereby releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. FERC has steadfastly refused to take those emissions into account. The D.C. Circuit held that position illegal in an opinion released last Friday. That same day, by coincidence, FERC published guidelines in the Federal Register explaining how it proposed to consider those emissions.
The D.C. Circuit opinion followed up on previous rulings but left no room for doubt about the court's position. The case involved a minor pipeline upgrade by the Tennessee Natural …
Arguments and judicial reasoning in administrative law cases usually focus on the case at hand. Indeed, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) commands that narrow focus. The APA does not give the courts any role in shaping the laws governing administrative agencies, for that is what Congress does. Instead, it gives the courts a modest, albeit difficult responsibility: They may determine whether a particular agency action is arbitrary and capricious or contrary to law. Therefore, parties challenging an agency rule they disapprove of generally argue that the agency has violated some restraint stated in the statute or exercised its discretion in an arbitrary way.
But in the U.S. Supreme Court case heard last week about the scope of EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (West Virginia v. EPA), coal companies relied heavily on a "parade of horribles" argument — a listing of bad things that …
This op-ed was originally published by Slate.
Last fall, on the same day that the parties to the Paris Agreement gathered in Glasgow for their first day of their annual international climate meeting, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would review an appellate court decision about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from fossil fuel power plants under the Clean Air Act.
Fast forward half a year: On February 28, the day that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change issued its sobering report on climate adaptation and harms to human and planetary well-being, the court heard oral arguments in the case—West Virginia v. EPA.
Once again, it was a split-screen reality.
In reaction to the report, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres stated, "Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership …
