In a series of orders this week, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit granted motions by EPA to pause cases challenging several Obama-era regulatory actions while the new administration reviews those rules. With those cases on hold, the dispute over the fate of those rules will move out of the courts and into the administrative process.
Continue Reading DC Circuit Pausing Challenges to Obama Environmental Rules Pending Trump Administration’s Review

The New Source Review (NSR) Program of the Clean Air Act requires large new plants to go through an extensive, time-consuming and expensive review and permitting process prior to construction. Such sources are required through these permits, among other requirements, to install the best available control technologies (BACT) to reduce levels of specific regulated pollutants. The NSR program also applies to existing facilities if they are modified in substantial ways and if, as a result, emissions increase by significant amounts. For the first two decades of the NSR program, existing sources rarely triggered it. That is because EPA applied it in a way to be triggered only by unusual projects that would expand the capacity of the source. It is also because NSR is so time-consuming and expensive that sources generally avoided activities that would expand their capacities because they could trigger NSR. That all changed drastically in the late 1990s.
Continue Reading New Source Review for Existing Sources: Reform Is Needed–Will the New Administration Do It?

President Trump made good on one of his key campaign promises on Tuesday, signing an executive order (E.O.) entitled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. The long-awaited E.O., which was published in the Federal Register today (82 Fed. Reg. 16093), targets the Obama administration’s key climate policies, including regulations affecting power plants and oil and gas production facilities. More broadly, the E.O. affirms the Trump administration’s priority of ensuring domestically produced energy and economic growth.
Continue Reading President Trump’s Executive Order Prioritizing America’s Energy Independence Published in Federal Register

How could a Depression-era case about the constitutionality of a certificate of public convenience and necessity be relevant to environmental law today? Well, there is a lot of discussion about ice manufacturing, which some might argue is relevant to climate change.
Continue Reading After 85 Years, It’s Time to Reinvest in the Laboratories of Democracy