The Natural Resources Conservation Service seeks input for the Service to use to inform how it will implement funds received under the Inflation Reduction Act to fund the deployment of climate-smart practices on U.S. farms, ranches, and forestlands through four Farm Bill conservation programs and on funding to quantify carbon sequestration and carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions at the field scale.
NOAA, on behalf of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, announced the availability of a draft Fifth National Climate Assessment report for public comment.
In February 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) promulgated climate-resilient development (CRD), which combines adaptation and mitigation as a principal strategy for managing climate change. This Article discusses local land use law in the context of CRD and provides a methodology for identifying and evaluating strategies that address the global climate crisis at the local level. Local governments have the power to integrate land use strategies that include CRD components, and the IPCC identified these strategies as effective tools for implementing CRD.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy seeks input to help inform the framing, development, and eventual use of the first national nature assessment, conducted under the authority of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 and Exec. Order No. 14072 on strengthening the nation’s forests, communities, and local economies.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy and CEQ seek input on the development of a U.S. Ocean Climate Action Plan that will help guide and coordinate actions by the federal government and civil society to address ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes-based mitigation and adaptation solutions to climate change.
Economic theory suggests that pollution tax and cap-and-trade regulations can be functionally equivalent. Environmentalists tend to prefer the firm emissions cap in cap-and-trade programs, while economists and business interests tend to prefer the price certainty of tax programs. But both may be overlooking behavioral distinctions between the two policies. Using a novel randomized case experiment, this Article tests whether the framing changes negotiated policies.
This Comment takes up two recent conflicting developments: the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which was designed to undercut present and future federal climate action, and Congress’ surprising countermove passing climate legislation in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has dramatically accelerated development of the rule of law around climate change in the United States.
On the final day of the 2021-2022 term, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. The majority (6-3) opinion limited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under Clean Air Act §111(d), in part by invoking the “major questions doctrine.” The decision has implications for EPA’s authority both to regulate emissions from stationary sources and to regulate greenhouse gases more broadly.
HUD seeks input on funding rounds and utility benchmarking for a new program, the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, which will make funding available to support energy, and water efficiency retrofits and climate resilience of HUD-assisted multifamily properties in response to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Climate impacts in the United States disproportionately fall on low-income communities and communities of color. As the costs of climate adaptation mount, municipalities and states have brought litigation against fossil fuel companies to recover for extensive damage caused by climate change. Drawing on lessons from previous tobacco and asbestos suits, this Article argues that damages litigation—while properly heard in state courts—has significant shortcomings as an equitable climate change adaptation strategy.