The Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) is published by the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI’s) Environmental Law Reporter in partnership with Vanderbilt University Law School. This Comment highlights the results of the ELPAR article selection process and reports on the environmental legal scholarship for the 2021-2022 academic year, including the number of environmental law articles published in general law reviews versus environmental law journals, and the topics covered in the articles.

The European Union’s (EU’s) recent proposal for a new regulation on EV batteries is a groundbreaking effort, the first to focus on the entire value chain to improve product sustainability and safety throughout the life cycle. Battery producers inside and outside of the EU will have to meet a series of requirements, starting from carbon footprint declaration and related labeling to complying with life-cycle carbon footprint thresholds, for having their products placed in the EU market.

This Article, adapted from the Climate Science and Law for Judges Curriculum, examines the status and viability of judicial remedies in climate change litigation. It focuses on climate cases that are seeking science-based remedies specifically related to climate mitigation (actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or draw down atmospheric carbon) and climate-change adaptation (actions to reduce the negative impacts of climate disruption on human and natural communities).

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 name of the climate game right now is fast, sustained progress. The world needs this both politically and technologically to effectively fight climate change. Progress was achieved both politically and technologically with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which allocated $369 billion to “energy security and climate change,” amounting to the United States’ largest investment in climate action to date.

With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Water Resources Development Act of 2022, the statutory landscape has changed to reflect the Biden Administration’s emphasis on environmental justice. On February 27, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and ELI’s Pro Bono Clearinghouse co-hosted a panel of experts who explored how communities can leverage the statutory changes that have taken place, what decisions have been left up to agencies, and how proposed legislation, like the Environmental Justice for All Act, will affect future environmental justice efforts.

Carbon offsets allow polluters to pay someone else to reduce, avoid, or remove emissions to counterbalance their own emissions. For some, carbon accounting concerns render offsets a necessary evil to be tightly regulated on the path toward decarbonization. For others, moral and political concerns render offsets a dangerous mistake to be thrown out of the climate law toolbox.

In January 2021, the mining sector was made eligible for coverage under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) program, a pilot project designed to expedite federal permitting. Although mining projects have been eligible for over two years, only recently was the first one posted on the Permitting Dashboard.

Climate change is ravaging the flora and fauna of the United States and contributes to ecosystem damage, including the conversion of Alaskan forests to savannah grasslands, rising sea levels that have destroyed the Key deer’s habitat, and warming regional temperatures that have stifled the growth of crops in the Northeast. What if there were a way for species to thrive away from the sinking coasts and changing landscapes that they have historically inhabited?