In June 2022, in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that on “major questions” the U.S. Congress must legislate with far more clarity and specificity than previously demanded. The Court held the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may regulate power plant carbon emissions in traditional ways, but the novel approach taken in the Clean Power Plan required clearer authorization than Congress had provided. Six weeks later, Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The Inflation Reduction Act and Federal Buy Clean Initiative have each inspired states and municipalities to regulate embodied carbon (Scope 3) using “Buy Clean” policies and legislation. Reducing embodied carbon has become mainstream, and environmental product declarations (EPDs) have surfaced as the tool. Are EPDs alone enough? Is the compliance timeline sufficient? On February 1, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts that provided an update on Buy Clean policy, green funding, the status of carbon emissions, and a primer on EPDs.

As noted by the International Energy Agency, taxation is a necessary component of strategies to increase adoption of electric vehicle (EV) technology. In the United States, taxation has supported the energy policy of increased uptake of EVs. This Article focuses on the evolving U.S. tax policy, highlighting the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. It addresses continuing challenges and ways to meet those challenges, including examining some European policies for encouraging EVs. The author concludes by recommending policies that may be consistent with existing U.S.

Many chemicals and hazardous substances are kept in places that can withstand ordinary rain, but not severe storms or floods. If these events occur and the chemicals are released, people and the environment may be endangered. This Article discusses the hazards posed to chemical and waste disposal facilities by extreme weather events that would be worsened as a result of climate change, and how U.S. laws do (or do not) deal with these hazards; and considers how the law would need to change to cope with what would happen to these facilities in a potentially 4°C world.

It is beyond reasonable dispute that climate change is already taking a toll on nations around the world. In supranational legal and economic discussions, it is also well known that many nations that already suffer great injury from rising temperatures are typically not the ones who caused the problem. The culprits, historically, are developed nations.

Young people are leading the fight against climate change in the United States and around the world. Thirty-two percent of Gen Zers—more than any other generation—have taken concrete actions to address climate change in the last year. Local governments and officials can work with young leaders in their communities to advance climate action by providing resources and enacting change through ordinances, policies, programs, and infrastructure development.

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.

This Article examines the nature of the threats that climate change poses and will continue to pose for salmon recovery, as well as possible legal responses to combat these threats. It also considers the future prospects of Pacific salmon in a world that will include significant climate change and other threats to preserving and equitably apportioning the salmon resource, whose environmental sensitivity and expansive life cycle will continue to pose substantial challenges for the foreseeable future.