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.

In the absence of a national mandate to intensify use of renewable energy, many corporations are increasing their own reliance on renewables. Numerous utilities are likewise transitioning toward wind, thermal, and solar power. But renewable energy continues to face challenges, including battery storage, grid expansion and incorporation of renewables into the grid, initial project costs, and regulatory barriers. How are utilities and energy-consuming companies increasing their renewables portfolios while navigating this terrain?

The Endangered Species Act defines an endangered species as one at risk of extinction “throughout all or a significant portion of its range.” The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has repeatedly defined “significant portion” to mean an area of the range essential to species persistence. This definition is redundant, and various iterations of the definition have been struck down in the past. At the same time, other proposals to list a species only in a portion of its range fail to satisfy the statutory requirements.

Enhanced oil recovery has generated an immense and growing market for carbon dioxide (CO2), which has uses in manufacturing, medical, and industrial settings. In the next 30 years, these combined end-uses will necessitate a three- to fivefold expansion of existing CO2 transportation infrastructure in the United States. A more flexible, extensive, and integrated CO2 pipeline network is necessary to accommodate this growing demand.

In September 2019, in an article entitled “The Market Has Spoken: Coal Is Dying,” Matt Egan of CNN Business wrote, "President Donald Trump has gutted regulations on the coal industry, falsely claimed that windmills cause cancer and installed a former coal lobbyist to lead the [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] EPA. In the face of those efforts to rescue coal country, America’s aging fleet of coal-fired plants continues to shrink. New plants are not getting built. Trump’s vow to rip up environmental rules has been overwhelmed by an even more powerful force: the free market.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently finalized comprehensive changes in how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is implemented. These changes address the species listing process, critical habitat designations, protections for threatened species, and the §7 consultation process.