Calendar

Staying on top of the legal and policy developments in the climate change arena is no small task. As a special service to our members, the Environmental Law Institute provides a series of monthly conference calls with national experts on climate law and policy to keep you up to date and to answer your questions.

Topics addressed in this month's call:

• Recap of the election results from the standpoint of federal environmental policy.
• The impact of the elevation of Justice Barrett in the context of the election results.
• (10/8/2020) Nearly one-third of California land and coastal waters must be preserved by 2030 to help prevent the release of emissions that are causing climate change under an executive order signed by the governor yesterday.
• (10/15/2020) Kentucky on Tuesday announced it is using about $8.5 million from the Volkswagen AG diesel emissions scandal settlement to replace old transit system buses with cleaner ones and make other transportation improvements.
• (10/16/2020) Orlando, Fla.'s electric company will be coal-free by 2027 as it presses ahead with plans to meet net-zero carbon emissions targets by 2050.
• (10/19/2020) Holding back a rising sea and defending against tropical storms is estimated to cost southeast Florida businesses upward of $22 billion over the next 50 years.
• (10/19/2020) New Jersey officials called last week for a ban on gas car sales by 2035, a move that would make the state the first outside California to enact such a policy.
• (10/19/2020) N.Y. finalizes grid plan seen as major shift for renewables
• (10/19/2020) Oregon's sole remaining coal-fired power plant shut down for good last week, 20 years ahead of schedule.
• (10/30/2020) New York's top financial regulator yesterday told the banking firms it oversees to begin factoring climate change into their risk management strategies.
• (10/30/2020) The governors of Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina launched a new regional collaborative this week to promote offshore wind in their states, despite a ban by President Trump that could affect those efforts.

Speakers:
Vicki A. Arroyo, Executive Director, Georgetown Climate Center and Professor from Practice, Georgetown University Law Center
Michael Gerrard, Founder and Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School
Robert Sussman, Principal, Sussman & Associates

Materials:
ELI members logged on to the Members site will have access to a recording of this session (usually posted w/in 48 hours). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, go HERE to see the many benefits of membership and how to join.

ELI Monthly Climate Briefings are made possible by the
generous support of our institutional members.

NOTE: This call/recording is for ELI members only. No comments may be quoted
or used without the express written permission of ELI and the panelist.

Co-sponsored by the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE)

Indigenous peoples inhabit territories that contain over 80% of the Earth’s remaining biodiversity. However, Indigenous communities and lands are frequently under pressure from extractive interests, illegal logging or poaching and encroaching farmland. Community science has the potential for improving compliance with laws designed to protect natural resources, especially in areas where indigenous people are located. This is because Indigenous peoples often must deal with additional barriers to adequate enforcement of environmental rule of law in their territories including lack of attention from some government authorities, lack of governmental resources, or in some cases the difficulty in accessing activities on their lands.. In these circumstances, community science and monitoring tools can serve as a powerful mechanism for communities to take action when environmentally harmful activity is happening on their lands. There have been various innovations in Indigenous and remote communities where monitoring is ongoing, including community patrols and technologies that work without consistent cellular or internet services.

The fourth session of INECE’s webinar series on citizen science and environmental enforcement explores how Indigenous communities are using community science to uncover environmental injustice and improve environmental protection on their lands.

Speakers:
LeRoy Paddock, Visiting Scholar, ELI; Managing Director, INECE Secretariat (Moderator)
Tom Bewick, Peru Country Director, Rainforest Foundation US
Ruth Noguerón, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute
Ellen Pfeiffer, Researcher in Citizen Science, UN IHE

ELI’s Annual Eastern Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is an overview of environmental law from the top experts in the field. Boot Camp is designed primarily for attorneys and environmental managers new to environmental law, although more experienced professionals have found the course provides an efficient update as well. While the course has a strong legal focus, it is accessible to professionals other than lawyers, including corporate environmental managers, paralegals, and technical staff who would benefit from a more thorough understanding of environmental law.

ELI’s Eastern Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is led by carefully selected senior practitioners and environmental managers who provide a practical and pragmatic view of environmental law and policy issues likely to be encountered by those working in the field. Annual topics include sessions on: NEPA, ESA, CWA, civil and criminal enforcement, TSCA, FIFRA, energy law, CAA, RCRA, CERCLA, due diligence in transactions, and ethics.

Please note: ELI's Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is available only to the member firms and organizations of ELI’s Professional, Corporate, and Public Interest Programs and to individual ELI Associates Program members. Membership status must be current through the month of the course. We encourage early enrollment as space is limited. Those seeking CLE can earn almost 20 hours for a reasonable fee, with special discounts provided to government, academic, and public interest employees.

For information on future Boot Camps, please go HERE.

• View ELI's Event Policies.
• View ELI's CLE Financial Hardship Policy.

An ELI Public Webinar

Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies have set a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions target with renewable electricity as a central component in their commitment to tackle climate change. To achieve these goals, companies—in deciding where to invest in new facilities and infrastructure—are prioritizing locations with electric grid infrastructure that offers low- or zero-carbon electricity. In a new report, David Gardiner & Associates investigated the role of cities’ electricity sourcing and how that plays into enticing companies to bring businesses and jobs to their area.

Do fast-growing cities, such as Austin, Charlotte, Indianapolis, and Nashville, compete for new businesses based on the availability of the renewables and the carbon emissions of their electric grids? How are utilities addressing demands for renewable or low-carbon power by some of the largest corporations? Will corporate commitments that include supply chains drive demand for renewable energy among medium- and small-sized businesses?

Join ELI and expert panelists to explore how corporate renewables and climate commitments are creating pressure on cities as they compete for business recruitment and retention, and how that pressure in turn is creating incentives for a more rapid decarbonization of electric utilities.

Panelists:
Linda Breggin, Director, Center for State, Tribal, and Local Environmental Programs; and Senior Attorney, Environmental Law Institute, Moderator
Bryn Baker, Director, Policy Innovation, Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance
David Gardiner, President, David Gardiner & Associates
James Hewett, Vice President, Renewable Energy, David Gardiner & Associates
Erin Hiatt, Senior Director, Sustainability and Innovation, Retail Leaders Industry Association
Decosta Jenkins, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nashville Electric Service
Michael Vandenbergh, David Daniels Allen Chair of Law and Professor, Vanderbilt University Law School

Materials:

ELI members will have subsequent access to any materials/a recording of this session (usually posted w/in 48 hours). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, go HERE to see the many benefits of membership and how to join.

ELI’s Annual Eastern Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is an overview of environmental law from the top experts in the field. Boot Camp is designed primarily for attorneys and environmental managers new to environmental law, although more experienced professionals have found the course provides an efficient update as well. While the course has a strong legal focus, it is accessible to professionals other than lawyers, including corporate environmental managers, paralegals, and technical staff who would benefit from a more thorough understanding of environmental law.

ELI’s Eastern Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is led by carefully selected senior practitioners and environmental managers who provide a practical and pragmatic view of environmental law and policy issues likely to be encountered by those working in the field. Annual topics include sessions on: NEPA, ESA, CWA, civil and criminal enforcement, TSCA, FIFRA, energy law, CAA, RCRA, CERCLA, due diligence in transactions, and ethics.

Please note: ELI's Boot Camp on Environmental Law® is available only to the member firms and organizations of ELI’s Professional, Corporate, and Public Interest Programs and to individual ELI Associates Program members. Membership status must be current through the month of the course. We encourage early enrollment as space is limited. Those seeking CLE can earn almost 20 hours for a reasonable fee, with special discounts provided to government, academic, and public interest employees.

For information on future Boot Camps, please go HERE.

• View ELI's Event Policies.
• View ELI's CLE Financial Hardship Policy.