Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

These initiatives are designed to empower local governments and communities with the tools and funding necessary to build long-term climate resilience. Both programs received multi year funding in the 2022 Climate Budget and each awarded its first round of grants in 2023.

Sea Level

Law Columbia

MARCH 27, 2025

City of New York , plumbing and building trade groups challenged New York Citys Local Law 154 of 2021 , a piece of legislation that prohibits fossil fuel combustion in most new buildings. This blog post discusses Local Law 154, unpacks Judge Abrams decision, and ends with a refresher on California Restaurant Association v.

Law

Law Columbia

MAY 23, 2025

As such, although EU and EEA law are distinct, their substance is identical with respect to the core rules of the internal market. In this sense, the EFTA Court also provides for an authoritative judicial clarification of EU law. The EEA Agreement aims to extend the core of the EU internal market to EEA/EFTA States (art.

Fossil Fuels

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 7, 2025

A recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data centers used about 4% of total US electricity consumption in 2023, and that total is expected to grow as high as 12% within the next three years. Siddique opened by explaining Michigan’s climate law passed in 2023.

Clean Energy

Ocean Conservancy

JUNE 27, 2025

While plastic pollution continues to flow into our ocean with a garbage truck’s worth every minute, we have seen state and local governments across the country work diligently toward impactful solutions that will combat this crisis and protect our ocean for generations to come. See more wonderful ocean animals!

Ocean

A Greener Life

JULY 27, 2025

In March 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution requesting an advisory opinion on the following two questions: What are states’ obligations under international law to ensure the protection of the environment, and what are the legal consequences for countries under these obligations?

Paris Agreement

Legal Planet

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Circuit, the statute governing new railroad lines required the agency to consider a wide range of environmental impacts in deciding whether to approve the line. To begin with, the page limit on impact statements doesnt include appendices, where a lot of the details about particular impacts could be covered. According to the D.C.

Clean Air Act

Law Columbia

JULY 29, 2025

Echoing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its Advisory Opinion 32/25 , on July 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously held that this right constitutes a binding norm of international law. First, what are States’ obligations, under international law, to protect the climate system for present and future generations?

Fossil Fuels

PA Environment Daily

DECEMBER 17, 2024

In 2023, the Ohio River was named the 2nd most endangered river in the country, and it is the largest body of water in the United States that does not receive any dedicated federal funding for clean-up.

Conservation

PA Environment Daily

JUNE 20, 2025

Elizabeth Township approved the plan in January 2023 and the case made its way to Commonwealth Court. When residents organize, testify, and use the law to defend their children and neighbors, we can win.” Despite expert testimony and strong public opposition, the Township approved the project in January 2023.

Law

PA Environment Daily

JUNE 12, 2025

2,070 conventional wells-- 66% of those abandoned wells were not required to have a well plugging bond by law. Of the wells with no reporting, 19,644 wells-- 83%-- of those wells are not required to have a plugging bond by law. 753 well owners covering 81,396 wells did report. 4,946 well owners were required to report. Read more here.

Waste

Law Columbia

MARCH 25, 2025

The subsequent 2023-2024 El Nio event proved even deadlier, with 5 fatalities out of 127 reported cases of heat-related illnesses. While no provision prohibits litigation related to the Act, it does create obstacles to using litigation as a means of government accountability. Malaysia regularly experiences high temperatures.

Climate Change

Enviromental Defense

JULY 24, 2025

A coalition of justice, health and environmental groups are calling on Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Julie Dabrusin to fully implement the landmark 2023 Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) amendments recognizing — for the first time in Canadian law — the right to a healthy environment.

Environmental Protection

HumanNature

MAY 2, 2025

2 While many of the current climate and disaster strategies and plans are clear on the need for disaster risk governance and institutional frameworks, there is still emphasis on top-down approaches. Communities therefore remain passive recipients of disaster management activities as frameworks put much of the responsibility on governments.

Climate Change

Law Columbia

JULY 2, 2025

Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in 2023 finding that the EIS was deficient because it did not include estimates of GHG emissions and other impacts from induced oil production or oil refining. Most of these NEPA decisions entail mixed questions of law and fact.

Fossil Fuels

Vermont Law

DECEMBER 24, 2024

Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy in the Green Mountain State Written by Kathryn Keener and Diana Csank Cannabis laws are loosening, and recent legislative measures in some U.S. states and local governments indicate increased receptivity around psilocybin use, too. Today, cannabis is poised for rescheduling. As Hadas Alterman, Esq.,

Law

Circle of Blue

MAY 20, 2025

They dont cover government or enterprise data centers. In 2024, the Joyce Foundation examined groundwater governance in the U.S. In 2023, Michigan vowed to source 100% of its utility scale energy from renewables by 2040, although some environmentalists say new laws encouraging data centers could thwart that goal.

Cooling

Enviromental Defense

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

While the Alberta Energy Regulator has the ability, and responsibility, to hold companies that break the law to account, it has repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to enforce its own laws when it comes to industry rulebreakers — leaving Albertans to bear the costs and clean up the mess. million in this case, but they opted not to.

Regulations

Law Columbia

MARCH 10, 2025

On March 29, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on States obligations regarding climate change. State Responsibilities in Climate Change: What Law Applies?

Climate Change

Enviromental Defense

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Ecojustice and Environmental Defence have uncovered that greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s exported oil, gas, and coal ballooned to record levels in 2023. Since 2012, Canada’s annual exported emissions have increased a whopping 378 million tonnes.

Fossil Fuels

Law Columbia

APRIL 11, 2025

Over the last five years, several states, including New York (2020), California (2022), Illinois (2023), and Michigan (2023) have adopted comprehensive permitting reforms that curtail the power of local governments to block development of large-scale renewable energy projects.

Renewable Energy

Law Columbia

MARCH 6, 2025

History of the Case Background to the Claim In April 2021, a group of plaintiffs led by the Czech Climate Litigation Association ( Klimatick aloba R ), and including a municipality and several individuals, filed a case against the central government of the Czech Republic and four subsidiary ministries for their inaction on climate change.

Paris Agreement

National Law Center

JUNE 10, 2025

However, the court disagreed, concluding that Swampbuster is a valid exercise of Congress’s spending power and that the law should be upheld. In other words, the Fifth Amendment establishes that the federal government may not “take” private property without providing the owner with appropriate compensation. 5 U.S.C. §

2013

Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 16, 2024

In the past year, weve seen significant victories that inspire hope, like the Swiss KlimaSeniorinnen case, which called for an improved government climate action plan; Held v. This tensionbetween exciting breakthroughs and persistent delaysunderscores the complexity of litigation’s role in climate governance.

2025

Union of Concerned Scientists

JANUARY 15, 2025

The first NEVI Program-funded station opened in December 2023 in Ohio , and since then, many states have or are poised to bring NEVI charging stations online in the coming months. There is also room for improvement in NEVI Program implementation. In the United States, it is normal for charging projects to take 18 months.

Electricity

Vermont Law

OCTOBER 31, 2024

billion dollars in 2023, and eggs brought in about 17.9 billion dollars in 2023. A 2023 Beacon blog highlighted the myriad ways slaughterhouses worsen uncountable human lives. Despite the tremendous harm that CAFOs do, the federal government does not effectively regulate methane emissions from CAFOs. CAFOs are huge.

Climate Change

PA Environment Daily

MARCH 23, 2025

Most of the original violations were issued in November 2023. Original violations issued November 2023. In 2023, DEP issued 512 violations to conventional well owners for abandonment. In 2023, DEP issued or continued 20 violations to 10 shale gas well owners for abandoning and not plugging their wells. Read more here.

2011

PA Environment Daily

MARCH 20, 2025

On March 20, PASA Sustainable Agriculture announced it has signed on to a lawsuit filed yesterday by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Public Rights Project. The government must restore trust by honoring its commitments.

Climate Change

PA Environment Daily

JANUARY 6, 2025

Here are 116 new stories in the PA Environment Digest about individuals, groups, local governments, farmers, businesses, watershed groups and many more working all across Pennsylvania to restore and protect the environment and show others the beauty that surrounds us.

Conservation

A Greener Life

JULY 6, 2025

However, recent efforts have focused on reversing this trend, with the government implementing stricter enforcement of environmental regulations and bolstering sustainable initiatives, such as promoting conservation efforts and enforcing land-use restrictions. drop in Amazon deforestation between 2023 and 2024.

2025

PA Environment Daily

AUGUST 6, 2025

On August 4, 2025, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied efforts by all PA Senate Republicans and all PA House Republicans to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a law that took away the authority to increase conventional oil and gas well plugging bond amounts to cover taxpayer costs of plugging wells they abandon.

Air Pollution

Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 24, 2024

As a 2023 UCS report noted , the 2.4 Today, the demographics of agricultural and food workers have shifted, but economic exploitation continues to plague our food system as workers, predominantly people of color and immigrants, face similar injustices and lack of protections in exclusionary labor laws.

Law

Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 19, 2024

These efforts to hinder examination of the impacts of strict state abortion laws on pregnant people are a political play that only serves to put women and families at risk of even greater harm. Ambers death was attributed to delayed care, whereas Candi felt she could not seek medical care altogether due to fear of the states law.

Politics

PA Environment Daily

AUGUST 7, 2025

Since early 2023, PJM has been warning of the potential for an electricity supply and demand imbalance — one we are now seeing play out — and the effect that could have on future grid reliability. The charges for both of these components are governed by the utility and the specific state and do not involve PJM. Read more here.

Politics

Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 18, 2024

EPAs answer to this EO was their 2022 Equity Action Plan , where they set out an ambitious goal to release a Cumulative Impacts Framework document by September 23, 2023. In April 2023, Executive Order 14096 , Revitalizing Our Nations Commitment to Environmental Justice for All included the phrase cumulative impact nine times.

Environmental Protection

A Greener Life

JANUARY 2, 2025

The German example Germany, the economic and industrial powerhouse in Europe in 2023, decided, for ideological and emotional reasons, to wean itself off nuclear power , even though the low-carbon baseload energy source was key to stability and economic output. However, the global trend and even the European trend tell a different story.

2027

PA Environment Daily

APRIL 5, 2025

Its a long and difficult story, but it illustrates the typical lack of resources thousands of conventional oil and gas well owners have to properly operate their wells in compliance with state law and regulations. A response requested by February 17, 2023. Response requested by June 20, 2023. Violations continued.

Natural Gas