A district court granted summary judgment for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in a challenge to its long-term contracts with local power companies. Conservation groups argued that the 20-year contracts, which contained automatic renewal provisions and flexibility provisions allowing the compani...
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).
The Fifth Circuit ordered FERC to provide a meaningful explanation for the length of time it takes for final action in Federal Power Act §206 complaint proceedings, in a lawsuit concerning complaints that have gone four to six years without resolution. The Louisiana Public Service Commission petiti...
A district court granted a company's motion to preliminarily enjoin a Louisiana parish from enforcing a 12-month moratorium on activities related to well drilling on parish land. The company moved for an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the moratorium insofar as it banned seismic surveys, Class...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's denial of a Native American tribe's motion to remand to state court, and the dismissal of, its challenge to the city of Seattle's operation of a dam on the Skagit River. The tribe initially sued Seattle in state court, alleging that operation of the dam ...
The D.C. Circuit vacated a license issued by FERC for operation of a hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The state of Maryland issued a CWA §401(a)(1) certification to the dam's operator in 2018 with conditions. The operator challenged the certification, and the parties reached ...
The D.C. Circuit, 2-1, remanded to FERC a 2018 decision to give all transmission owners unilateral authority to fund power line upgrades in the Midwest. The Commission had initially only allowed direct transmission owners to decide between the generators paying for the line upgrades upfront, or payi...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed a petition to review NRC's decision to issue an amended materials license authorizing uranium production for a DOE demonstration program at a facility in Ohio. Nonprofit groups argued NRC violated NEPA by failing to prepare an EIS and by failing to address the environmenta...
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.