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Recentering Environmental Law: A Thought Experiment

Legal Planet

We thought that the key to reducing air pollution was to require better pollution control devices. Instead, we would have understood that the root problem was the burning of fossil fuels in the first place. We would have started pumping money into renewable energy research.

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Danger Season Underscores Need for Strong EPA Power Plant Carbon Standards

Union of Concerned Scientists

The destruction we see today is a direct result of decades of dependence on fossil fuels, enabled by decades of deception and obstruction on the part of the fossil fuel industry, and prolonged by decades of inaction on the part of policymakers who have been in their thrall.

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EPA’s Power Plant Carbon Rules Are Critical—and Complex. Here’s What to Know, and What to Watch.

Union of Concerned Scientists

Through the Clean Air Act , and as affirmed—and reaffirmed—through multiple legal sagas, EPA is statutorily obligated to address carbon pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants. Section 111 of the Clean Air Act constrains how EPA sets standards—but gives states wide latitude in implementation.

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In a first for climate nuisance claims, a Hawai‘i State Court allowed Honolulu to proceed with its case against fossil fuel companies

Law Columbia

Starting in 2017, cities, counties, and states across the United States have filed claims (see here and here ) in state courts against fossil fuel companies seeking redress for the climate harms their products have caused. By Korey Silverman-Roati. Background. Many of these cases asserted nuisance and other tort law claims.

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Catch 22 at the Supreme Court

Legal Planet

CT , the Supreme Court said this: We hold that the Clean Air Act and the EPA actions it authorizes displace any federal common law right to seek abatement of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants. In 2011, in AEP v. Milo Minderbinder would be very pleased. Download as PDF.

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Why the New Climate Reg for Coal is a Perfectly Normal EPA Rule

Legal Planet

Is EPA’s new climate rule a sneaky effort to eliminate coal or a valid pollution standard? Some new arguments made by EPA convince me that it’s pursuing a time-tested approach to pollution control. It’s not that EPA is trying to grind down the industry.

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Improving EPA’s Latest Ozone Transport Rule

Acoel

EPA’s latest proposed rule targeting NOx emissions from fossil-fueled electric generating units (EGUs) is a classic study of diminishing returns. It marks the seventh round of NOx controls for the EGU sector since 1990. The downwind air quality benefits are minimal. Posted on June 29, 2022 by Eugene M.

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