Vibrant Environment
All | Biodiversity | Climate Change and Sustainability | Environmental Justice | Governance and Rule of Law | Land Use and Natural Resources | Oceans and Coasts | Pollution Control
It will surprise no one that Inflation Reduction Act implementation is a critical priority for 2024. Eighteen months after the IRA was signed, we’re starting to see the shape, scale, and strategy of some of its programs, and how its nearly $400 billion is being put into play to help realize the transition to a clean energy economy.
The Environmental Law Institute researches local government best practices on climate mitigation and adaptation. In conjunction with this work, ELI develops model policies and ordinances as well as participates in convenings that produce recommendations such as Mayor Cooper's Sustainability Advisory Committee 2021 Report on the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County's Climate Change Mitigation Action Plan.
The impacts of climate change are being felt throughout all regions of the United States and are expected to worsen with every fraction of a degree of additional warming. Those were some of the headline takeaways from the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), published November 14, 2023.
NRDC and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) recently released a Model Ordinance Establishing a Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) Program for Residential Municipal Solid Waste that can help municipalities reduce the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) sent to landfills and incinerators and, at the same time, institute more transparent, efficient, and fair pricing for residential waste management.
By ELR Staff
Household recycling can reduce demand for virgin materials, limit waste sent to landfills, and lessen the cost of producing metal-, glass-, and paper-containing products. Understanding the policies most conducive to promoting recycling is key to success. The November 2023 issue of ELR—The Environmental Law Reporter looks at the efficacy of state and local recycling policies and identifies contexts where the greatest improvements are possible. Using the most comprehensive data set on U.S. household recycling behavior, authors Joel Huber, W.
By Linda Breggin, By Kyle J. Blasinsky
This past summer, devastating fires ravaged Hawai’i and smoke from Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season blanketed communities across the American East. The fires offered a vivid reminder of the destructive capabilities of wildfires such as those that burned on American shores during the record- breaking 2020 wildfire season that choked western cities.
By ELR Staff
On May 25, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a major swath of CWA protections when it issued its decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. In the Court’s view, the CWA extends to only those "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right," such that they are indistinguishable from those waters.
“Something Was Messing With the Earth’s Axis. The Answer Has to Do With Us.” I have to take that headline in the New York Times personally, as a potentially responsible party more at fault and liable for damages than most.
By Nick Collins
In late June, ELI co-hosted Moving Beyond Plastics: The Environmental Justice Impacts of Plastic Production, along with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and WilmerHale LLP.
By Taalin RaoShah, By John M. Doherty
Over the past decade, the issue of plastic waste has received growing attention, as powerful images of plastic in the natural environment have reached global audiences.