There has been an influx of “climate superfund” bills introduced and adopted in state legislatures across the country. Modeled after the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), these laws are designed to recover costs from large emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to pay for climate adaptation infrastructure.
PFAS exposure is emerging as a disability that veterans want covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). With claims relating to environmental exposure, it is often difficult to prove the disability is a result of service and not something else. However, there is another way to get service-connected disability coverage as a veteran: presumption of service connection.
This Article calls on the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to issue guidance clarifying that concurrent decommissioning is a “connected action” under the National Environmental Policy Act for relocation, managed retreat, and protect-in-place projects aimed at replacing infrastructure in environmentally threatened Alaska Native communities.
Little has been said on how the just transition to a decarbonized world relates to the human right, recently recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This Article explores this relationship and how to build a framework that guides current and future climate change endeavors. It argues that the human right’s substantive and procedural content must incorporate just transition claims, which would help resolve whether and how to advocate for specific climate measures.
Combating climate change requires not only rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but also removal of significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. CO2 removal (CDR) comes in many different forms, but climate scientists and policymakers are focusing on the potentially important role of large-scale use of emerging ocean-based techniques, often referred to as marine CDR (mCDR). In the United States, mCDR in domestic waters is governed by a patchwork of laws and regulations.
In 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will deliver an advisory opinion on the legal obligations of nations with respect to the mounting damage caused by climate change. This ruling will definitively restate applicable international law, provide a basis for new global policy decisions within the U.N. General Assembly, and provide a predicate for new lawsuits in national courts. To be effective, remedies for breaching a government’s duties to avert climate change will require a “collective remedy,” not merely financial compensation.
President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order No. 14008 created a new federal legal concept of “energy communities.” The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) further defined this term, with an emphasis on historical dependence on fossil energy industries. This Article summarizes and assesses current law for “energy communities” in the United States, with an emphasis on recent developments and early implementation efforts.
What is climate litigation? Widely accepted definitions suggest it is any litigation pertaining directly or indirectly to climate change, which encompasses both strategic and routine litigation. Building on this framework, previous empirical assessments have found that climate litigation has not prompted a climate-oriented jurisprudence. However, empirical evidence suggests that strategic litigation—and not routine litigation—has contributed to development of a climate-oriented jurisprudence in jurisdictions across the globe.
As in many other countries, climate change is driving new and complex litigation throughout India. These cases deal with a wide scope of issues, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, renewable energy development, and air pollution, among other topics. Five features related to India’s climate and energy policies, its judicial structure, and a recent Supreme Court decision make it likely that the courts will continue to play a significant role in shaping the country’s response to climate change.
Recent studies suggest natural gas is significantly more carbon-intensive than previously realized, with methane having at least 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. If the United States is to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, it must curtail methane leakage between 30% and 90%, and leakage is anticipated to cost producers $2 billion each year in lost product. Absent regulations from the federal government and many states, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector are developing innovative solutions.