Numerous cities, states, and counties have sued fossil fuel companies, with claims based on evidence found in the companies’ own internal documents and statements. These companies have argued their public statements are protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and right to petition clauses. This Article describes the current litigation, discusses the companies’ statements disseminated through various sources, and summarizes U.S. Supreme Court precedent and caselaw on commercial speech.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 added seven new sections to the Clean Air Act (CAA) and provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with substantial new authorities and resources. This Article examines these new amendments and the EPA-related provisions of the IRA, and explains the major implications of this historic legislation.

Over two dozen U.S. states and municipalities have filed lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, seeking abatement orders and compensation for climate damages based on theories such as public nuisance, negligence, and failure to warn, and alleging these companies knew about the dangers of their products, intentionally concealed those dangers, created doubt about climate science, and undermined public support for climate action.

Underregulation is a common and persistent environmental law problem, with recent scholarly focus on individual contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), whose harm is not fully known. But little attention has been given to the general trend of underregulation with respect to these chemicals, or explaining why this systematic underregulation occurs. This Article posits that federal agencies have been unacceptably slow to initiate protective regulations, and even once regulations are promulgated, they leave regulatory gaps that continue to expose populations to harmful effects.

The field of environmental law has seen many changes over the years, with demonstrable legal and policy victories for cleaner air and water. While the face of the environmental movement in its beginnings was predominantly male, women have become more prominent and influential within environmental law and policy over the decades.

The U.S. legal cannabis market is an estimated $60 billion industry, with approximately 28,000 businesses operating and employing upwards of 300,000 people, and growing rapidly. Large-scale cultivation requires significant energy usage, nutrient and pesticide inputs, and water usage, resulting in cumulative environmental impacts. Addressing these concerns raises complex legal issues because of cannabis’ federal classification as a Schedule 1 narcotic, which prevents federal agencies from collecting data on, providing guidance to, or regulating the industry.

The circular economy has gone mainstream as a goal in the transitions toward a more sustainable society. Often, however, laws that promote a circular economy remain vague or narrowly focused on resource efficiency, obscuring the fact that they have multiple environmental effects and can lead to environmental trade offs. This Article examines how to properly frame circular economy laws for sustainability, focusing on product-service systems generally and the case of car sharing in particular.

On October 29, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a petition filed by several states and coal companies attacking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The Court’s holding in this case would determine EPA’s continued ability to use the CAA—including the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) program—as a climate change tool.