Environment & Energy

Our planet faces unprecedented environmental challenges, threatening ecosystems, species, coastal communities, and all too often, human life itself. Heading the list of threats is climate change, with its promise of drastic environmental, economic, and cultural upheaval. But we also face persistent problems of air and water pollution, toxic wastes, cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and other Great Waters, and protecting natural resources and wildlife.

Central to the environmental health of the nation and the planet is decreasing our dependence on energy derived from burning fossil fuels. Our continued reliance on these sources is literally endangering the planet's ability to sustain life as we know it. Yet many policymakers, with the financial and rhetorical support of energy companies bent on making a profit at the cost of the planet's health, continue to resist desperately needed reforms. Read about CPR’s work protecting the environment in reports, testimony, op-eds and more. Use the search box to narrow the list.

Adapting to Climate Change in the United States: Seven Principles for Achieving Fairness

The impacts of climate change do not fall equally. As the waves rolled over New Jersey, New York, and much of the Atlantic seaboard during Hurricane Sandy last fall, climate scientists’ austere graphs predicting severe climate impacts suddenly popped to life. With that in mind, Alice Kaswan writes, policy-makers at all levels of government, whether considering the use of existing authorities or developing new ones, should attend to seven key principles and themes.

Type: Reports (May 4, 2013)
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Author(s): Alice Kaswan
Climate Change Adaptation: The Impact of Law on Adaptation in the Private Sector, CPR Briefing Paper 1209, July 2012, by CPR Member Scholar Victor B. Flatt and Policy Analyst Yee Huang.
Type: Reports (July 31, 2012)
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Author(s): Victor Flatt, Yee Huang
Climate Change and the Puget Sound: Building the Legal Framework for Adaptation
Type: Reports (June 10, 2011)
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Author(s): Robert Glicksman, Catherine O'Neill, Yee Huang, William Andreen, Victor Flatt, Bill Funk, Dale Goble, Alice Kaswan, Robert Verchick
The Law's Great Strength

The Law's Great Strength, by Holly Doremus

Type: Op-Eds (April 21, 2011)
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Author(s): Holly Doremus
Six Myths About Climate Change and the Clean Air Act

Six Myths About Climate Change and the Clean Air Act, CPR White Paper 1105

Type: Reports (March 18, 2011)
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Author(s): Daniel Farber, Amy Sinden
Missing the Mark in the Chesapeake Bay: A Report Card for the Phase I Watershed Implementation Plans

Missing the Mark in the Chesapeake Bay: A Report Card for the Phase I Watershed Implementation Plans, CPR White Paper 1102

Type: Reports (Jan. 24, 2011)
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Author(s): William Andreen, Robert Glicksman, Rena Steinzor, Yee Huang, Shana Campbell Jones
Proposition 23 and the damage it would do to California

Proposition 23 and the damage it would do to California: Setting aside the state's climate change law would damage the state's green economy and imperil California's commitment to fighting greenhouse gas emissions

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 4, 2010)
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Author(s): Daniel Farber
Beyond Environmental Law: Policy Proposals for a Better Environmental Future

Nearly half a century after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring helped launch the modern environmental movement, the nation’s environmental statutes are showing signs of age. New challenges have arisen – climate change, most notably, but others that also threaten the safety of the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat and more. In their new book, Beyond Environmental Law: Policy Proposals for a Better Environmental Future, CPR Member Scholars David Driesen and Alyson Flournoy compile original chapter contributions by leading environmental scholars assessing how to craft effective environmental standards to combat the environmental challenges of the 21st Century. Published in March 2010 by Cambridge University Press, Beyond Environmental Law proposes two new statutes: an Environmental Legacy Act to preserve a defined environmental legacy for future generations, and an Environmental Competition Statute to spark movement to new clean technologies. The first proposal would require for the first time that the federal government define an environmental legacy that it must preserve for future generations. The second would establish a market competition to maximize environmental protection.

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Author(s): Alyson Flournoy, David Driesen
Cap and trade is preferable to hodgepodge regulation

Cap and trade is preferable to hodgepodge regulation, by Kirsten Engel and David Driesen

Type: Op-Eds (Oct. 10, 2009)
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Author(s): Kirsten Engel, David Driesen
CPR Perspective: Environmental Justice and Climate Change: Incorporating Environmental Justice into Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade Programs

A well-designed cap-and-trade program could increase incentives for alternative energy and for new emissions-reduction technology. Traditional regulations generally take a facility’s basic production technology as a given and then impose rate-based emission reduction requirements in light of that production technology.   In contrast, a cap-and-trade program would put a price on carbon and, if the price signal is successful, would create an ongoing incentive to reduce overall emissions. An effective trading program could give facilities incentives to use less carbon-intensive energy sources and production technologies, not simply reduce end-of-the-stack emissions to comply with a set standard.

Type: Reports (July 1, 2009)
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Author(s): Alice Kaswan

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