An ELI Public Briefing
In an effort to make our experts' information widely accessible, the Environmental Law Institute is now offering our Monthly Climate Change Briefings to the public without any fees.
Staying on top of the legal and policy developments in the climate change arena is no small task. As a special service to the public, the Environmental Law Institute provides a series of monthly webinars with national experts on climate law and policy to keep you up to date with short presentations about various sectors, along with time at the end for discussion between the panelists and to answer audience questions.
Topics to be addressed in this month's briefing:
- Climate developments in the Trump administration
- Rescission of Executive Order 14008 “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” which dismantled the Justice40 Initiative and the federally-created Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (“CEJST”)
- Revoking the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) Phase II regulations that required the explicit consideration of cumulative impacts
- Rescission of Executive Order 14096 “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All” which required federal agencies to “identify, analyze, and address” cumulative impacts
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has rescinded two Biden-era memos that had state agencies consider social and environmental justice factors when making decisions concerning critical national infrastructure work
- Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’
- Executive Order instituted: Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission
- Continuing effects of federal funding rollbacks on states, and the status of some of that funding
- California Clean Air Act vehicle waiver update and fire recovery update
- New York efforts on building decarbonization
- Federal magistrate judge recommends against dismissal of RICO lawsuit brought by municipalities in Puerto Rico against fossil fuel companies
- State court judges in Minnesota and California allow state and municipal claims against fossil fuel companies to proceed
- Federal judge in Hawaii rules that insurance companies have obligation to defend a fossil fuel company in one of these cases, where the policy did not have a pollution exclusion
- Two lawsuits brought by youth plaintiffs suffer setbacks -- cases in California and Virginia
- Federal court in North Dakota rules that Council on Environmental Quality does not have authority to issue binding regulations under NEPA
- Challenge to Washington State's energy code dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds
Speakers:
Michael Gerrard, Founder and Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School
Ebony Griffin-Guerrier, Counsel, Singleton Schreiber
Cara Horowitz, Executive Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UCLA School of Law
Robert Sussman, Principal, Sussman & Associates
Materials:
ELI Members will have access to a recording of this session (usually posted within 1-3 business days). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, please see the many benefits of membership and how to join.