The Environmental Forum

Volume 40 Issue 1

January-February 2023

This issue's articles are available below.

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Person standing in a kitchen, with the microwave popcorn, plastic water bottle, and fire extinguisher highlighted

OPENING ARGUMENT PFAS are potentially harmful chemical substances that can be found throughout industry and commerce; in almost all homes; in the air, water, and soil; in the bodies of over 97 percent of Americans—and they can last forever. How is the U.S. managing them?

By Alexandra Dapolito Dunn
Baker Botts

With SIDEBARs from the Environmental Working Group and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

Steps of the Supreme Court, which has vines crawling up and entwined around the columns

CROSS-EXAMINATION The courts have taken over environmental law, sidestepping congressional intent and diminishing the statutes’ strong public-minded values—instead allowing administrative law to play an outsized role in shaping environmental policy.

By Sanne Knudsen
University of Washington, Seattle

With a SIDEBAR by John Cruden of Beveridge & Diamond

Joe Biden caught between a donkey and elephant, which are fighting

COVER STORY Joe Biden may have been able to push the most significant climate bill ever through a Democratic Congress in the first two years of his presidency, but he will face much less open legislative ground in the next two.

By Jeremy Bernstein
InsideEPA.com
Carla Peterman headshot

PROFILE Utility executive Carla Peterman, chief sustainability officer for PG&E, says that the transition to a carbon-free economy needs to be equitable, just, and affordable.

By Akielly Hu
Environmental Law Institute
The Debate: The New Toxic Substances Control Act Is Now Five Years Old: A Report

THE DEBATE Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission released a draft rule that would require companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions if they are “material” to operations. They often encompass the majority of a company’s total GHG emissions, and can include supply chain emissions, employees commuting and working from home, product use emissions, and more. Five experts evaluate opportunities up and down the value chain as corporations look beyond their operations.

By Ann Goodman, Pankaj Bhatia, Stephen Harper, Corinne Snow and Paul Davies
CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, World Resources Institute, Intel Corporation, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP
By: David P. Clarke

Preparing for Climate Hellscape—Federal Agencies Advance Resilience

By: Craig M. Pease

The Floods and Drought of Climate Change Call for Local Institutions

By: Linda K. Breggin

State Right to Repair Legislation Gains Momentum Across Nation

By: Ethan Shenkman

Helping Clients With Voluntary Cuts on the Road to “Net Zero”

By: Bethany A. Davis Noll

Will Environmental Policies That Consider Race Survive in Court?

By: Bruce Rich

A Destabilized, Dystopian World: A Future Foretold If We Don’t Act

By: Joseph E. Aldy

Crafting Compensation for Bearing Climate Change Loss and Damages

By: Stephen R. Dujack

Now As Then, Rivers Are Crucial to Our Prosperity

By: Lynn Scarlett

Lynn Scarlett on Trouble Banning Lead Ammunition

By: Akielly Hu

See Your Colleagues' Job Changes and Accolades

By: Akielly Hu

Benjamin Wilson of Beveridge & Diamond Wins ELI Award

By: Jordan Diamond

Jordan Diamond in ELI's Priorities for the Coming Year