The European Union’s (EU’s) recent proposal for a new regulation on EV batteries is a groundbreaking effort, the first to focus on the entire value chain to improve product sustainability and safety throughout the life cycle. Battery producers inside and outside of the EU will have to meet a series of requirements, starting from carbon footprint declaration and related labeling to complying with life-cycle carbon footprint thresholds, for having their products placed in the EU market.

In January 2021, the mining sector was made eligible for coverage under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) program, a pilot project designed to expedite federal permitting. Although mining projects have been eligible for over two years, only recently was the first one posted on the Permitting Dashboard.

As population growth and increased electrification rapidly raise demand for power, U.S. electric grids are struggling to keep pace, and the need for more transmission capacity is pressing. The U.S. Congress has delegated its interstate commerce authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to regulate interstate transmission rates. Meanwhile, states regulate intrastate transmission rates. What is perhaps surprising, though, is the fact that states generally have authority over the siting and construction of interstate transmission lines.

This Article explores the environmental justice, climate justice, and sustainable development implications of the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, which encourages domestically produced and processed minerals for the country’s energy transition from fossil fuels.

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. In a forthcoming book, leading legal scholars examine each of the SDGs and recommend a suite of government, private-sector, and civil society actions to help the United States achieve these goals. This Article is adapted from Chapter 7 of that book, Governing for Sustainability (John C. Dernbach & Scott E. Schang eds., ELI Press, forthcoming 2023).

October 18, 2022, marked the anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the primary federal law governing pollution control and quality of the waters of the United States. Though the Act has achieved vital successes, whether they can be sustained and how further progress can be made remain fundamental questions. On October 25, 2022, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts at its 2022 Annual Policy Forum to evaluate the past 50 years of the CWA, while looking ahead to the next 50 years.

Progressive cities and states have begun enacting policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, one of the leading sources of such emissions in the United States. The same jurisdictions have also generally committed to pursuing decarbonization equitably, without exacerbating the disadvantages faced by historically marginalized communities. Electrification is currently a favored policy for decarbonizing buildings. This Article examines the potential for building electrification to impact tenant energy costs through a case study of New York City.

This Comment examines the legal framework for state protection of nonfederal waters and its implications for cooperative federalism. After a brief overview and legal background, it identifies some recent state actions that attempt to fill gaps in coverage created by changes in federal interpretations of the Clean Water Act. It then summarizes the current scope of state regulation of waters in every state, in order to discern the likely impact of changes at the federal level on the status of waters in the states.

In Rethinking Grid Governance for the Climate Change Era, Shelley Welton has incisively described the underexplored institutional role of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) in facilitating decarbonization. As an attorney who advocates within the RTO stakeholder process, and before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the federal courts, I see firsthand how the RTO processes for identifying and addressing emerging issues can succeed or be derailed, and the limitations in FERC’s ability to proactively set these processes and their outcomes straight.

In Rethinking Grid Governance for the Climate Change Era, Prof. Shelley Welton makes a compelling case for why “U.S. grid governance must be redesigned to accommodate a new era of regulatory priorities that include responding to climate change.” As the operators of regional electricity markets and managers of the transmission grid, Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) “must play a pivotal role” in achieving clean electricity goals.