In the next few years, the International Maritime Organization will create the world’s first greenhouse gas (GHG) pricing mechanism to reduce emissions from shipping. The United States may be unable to adopt it legislatively, repeating the events of the Kyoto Protocol. To ease passage, nations agreed to create the mechanism as an amendment to the existing Convention for the Prevention of Pollution From Ships (MARPOL), which a U.S. Secretary of State should be able to unilaterally accept or reject under the expedited amendment procedure of MARPOL’s implementing legislation.

State and local governments are contending with the challenge of “residual climate risk”—threats posed by private adaptation failures that endanger surrounding communities. While policy tools like municipal ordinances can help address this gap, enforcement challenges, budget constraints, and private-property rights often limit their effectiveness. Meanwhile, federal support for adaptation has significantly declined, forcing state and local governments to explore alternative approaches.

In contrast to the large amount of attention that FERC’s consideration of climate change in natural gas permitting has received, there has been relatively little paid to how FERC does and should consider climate change in hydropower permitting. This Comment fills a gap in the literature by analyzing how FERC considers climate change during permitting for hydropower projects.

In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published what is commonly referred to as the “endangerment finding.” Prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) and reflecting robust science, the finding determined that six key greenhouse gases qualify as air pollution under the Clean Air Act and pose a threat to the health and welfare of future generations.