The authors of Energy Exactions make a compelling case for the use of energy exactions as a local policy tool that could complement important state policies. However, it must be designed carefully and tailored to different land uses and locations so it effectively supplements state and utility policy and does not become a barrier to housing affordability and enabler of suburban sprawl.

New residential and commercial developments often create costs in the form of congestion and burdens on municipal infrastructure. Citizens typically pay for infrastructure expansion associated with growth through their property taxes, but local governments sometimes use cost-shifting tools to force developers to pay for—or provide—new infrastructure themselves. These tools are forms of “exactions”—demands levied on developers to force them to pay for the burdens new projects impose.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is a little-known and too-often ignored federal authority with the power to block or rapidly accelerate the transition to a clean energy future, and is thus indispensable to addressing climate change. Institute for Policy Integrity scholars Bethany A. Davis Noll and Burcin Unel are to be applauded for bringing into focus a regulatory space that is essential to efforts to decarbonize the power sector.

Electricity generation in the United States is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which cause severe climate change-related harms. Despite the severity of those harms, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale electricity markets, has avoided addressing the issue. FERC has historically shied away from environmental considerations in ratemaking.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service raises important questions about the scope of the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA’s) protections for critical habitat. Foremost among them is a question one might think was long settled: what is “habitat”? In a short ruling, the Weyerhaeuser Court opined that “critical habitat” must first be “habitat,” but it did not attempt to define exactly what habitat is or how much deference the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should get on what is both a biological and policy question.

This Article, adapted from Chapter 16 of What Can Animal Law Learn From Environmental Law?, 2d Edition (ELI Press, forthcoming 2020), explores existing and potential wildlife conservation policies that could play a vital role in mitigating global climate change. It describes how climate change is impacting wildlife and biodiversity around the globe and reviews the history and current state of U.S. policy, including how the federal government currently manages climate change issues under the ESA.