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Flowing Water, Flowing Costs: Assessing FERC’s Authority to Decommission Dams

This year, 2019, marks the 20th anniversary of the removal of the Edwards Dam, one of the first functioning hydroelectric dam to be decommissioned and removed in the United States. It was also the first to be removed under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) asserted power to compel such a removal without compensation, an assertion raising legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. As our hydroelectric infrastructure continues to age, these questions may again come to the forefront.

EPA’s Existing Authority to Impose a Carbon “Tax”

A number of bills have been introduced in recent years to put a price on carbon via a federal carbon tax. These proposals generally proceed from the implicit assumption that the federal government in general, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in particular, does not already have such authority. That is incorrect. Under a federal statute that has been on the books since 1952, EPA could impose a carbon “tax” any time an administration in power is willing to do so.

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Ass'ns v. Glaser

The Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit concerning a tile drainage system in the San Joaquin Valley that discharged agricultural drainage into navigable waters without an NPDES permit. Fishermen and conservation groups argued the district court erred by placing the burden on them of pr...

Clean Water Action v. United States Environmental Protection Agency

The Fifth Circuit upheld a 2017 EPA rule that postponed compliance dates mandated by the Agency's 2015 rule setting new effluent limitation guidelines for flue gas desulfurization wastewater and bottom ash transport water from steam electric power plants. Environmental groups argued the 2017 rule ef...