CleanLaw

EELP's Executive Director Carrie Jenks, Associate Director Sara Dewey, and Senior Staff Attorney Erika Kranz discuss recent developments in greenhouse gas regulation and litigation. They compare these actions, highlight what they’re watching for next, and consider the implications for future climate policy. Transcript and related resources available on our website https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/clea...

In this CleanLaw quick Take, EELP’s Sara Dewey and Abby Husselbee discuss recent developments in corporate climate disclosure. Since the profusion of voluntary corporate net-zero targets set in the early 2020s, the policy landscape shaping disclosure requirements on corporate greenhouse gas emissions, climate-related risks, and more has been in flux. Sara and Abby talk about recent developments, i...

EELP founding director and Harvard Law professor Jody Freeman talks with Mike Toffel, a professor at Harvard Business School and faculty chair of the HBS Business and Environment Initiative, and Joe Aldy, a professor of the practice of environmental policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Jody, Mike, and Joe discuss the Salata Institute Corporate Climate Targets Database, a new tool they've developed to...

Electricity demand is surging, driven by data centers and the broader shift toward electrification. The United States faces a critical question: can the country build the energy infrastructure it needs fast enough to support economic growth while advancing the clean energy transition? As Congress debates the scope and timing for permitting reforms, we are sharing a special joint episode of CleanLa...

EELP Associate Director Sarah Dewey talks to Andy Mergen, clinical professor and faculty director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard and award-winning journalist, Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of the Planet. They discuss the US Forest Service proposal to rescind the 2001 roadless rule, the ecological value of roadless areas in o...

EELP Senior Attorney Erika Kranz speaks with Andy Mergen, Clinical Professor and Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and Sommer Engels, Clinical Instructor with the Clinic. They take listeners behind the scenes at the U.S. Department of Justice to explain the role of its Environment and Natural Resources Division, or ENRD. Erika, Andy, and Sommer, all ENRD alumni, d...

EELP Executive Director Carrie Jenks talks with EELP Senior Attorney Erika Kranz about the Trump administration’s efforts to stop or delay offshore wind development. They discuss the industry’s complex permitting regulatory environment, the challenges the administration’s actions have faced in court, and what’s at stake for the future of clean energy. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-co...

Professor and EELP Founding Director Jody Freeman and Professor Richard Lazarus talk with three HLS students about what drew them to environmental law, their experience at the Emmett Environmental Law Center, including working at EELP and in the environmental law and policy clinic, favorite courses, and what life at HLS is really like. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/20...

EELP Staff Attorney Erika Kranz talks with Andy Mergen, Director of the Harvard Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, about the recent decision to exempt oil and gas exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico from complying with the Endangered Species Act. The administration has invoked a never-before-used national security provision to bypass the Endangered Species Committee's normal,...

EELP Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Sue Biniaz, former Principal Deputy Special Envoy for Climate at the US State Department and lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. For nearly three decades, Sue served as the United States’ lead climate lawyer and climate negotiator. Together, Jody and Sue break down the significance of the recent US announc...

EELP director of State and Regional Climate Policies Dale Bryk talks with Jamie Van Nostrand, recent chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, the entity that oversees investor-owned electric and gas utilities. Together, they dive into the regulatory frameworks that govern utilities, how those rules drive utility investments, and what that means for consumer energy bills in the tr...

What does it take to electrify a cold-weather state? Maine is leading the nation in home electrification, with more than 150,000 heat pumps installed and counting. Efficiency Maine Trust executive director Michael Stoddard joins EELP’s Abby Husselbee to talk about how Maine’s independent approach, simple program design, and partnership with small businesses are transforming home heating and cuttin...

EELP's Hannah Perls speaks with environmental justice pioneer Charles Lee, former director of EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and principal author of the landmark 1987 report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, and now a visiting scholar at Howard University School of Law, and Sean Moriarty, former deputy commissioner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. They...

EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor, Jody Freeman, speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Solomon Hsiang, Professor of Global Environmental Policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. They speak about EPA's recent proposal to repeal the agency's 2009 Endangerment Finding, and dig into the legal and scientific arguments offered by EPA. They discuss whether t...

In this special crossover episode of CleanLaw and Shift Key, Heatmap's weekly podcast on decarbonization and the shift away from fossil fuels, EELP’s Founding Director Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Shift Key hosts Robinson Meyer, the Founding Executive Editor of Heatmap News, and Jesse Jenkins, Professor of Energy Systems Engineering at Princeton University.  They discuss the Trump administra...

In the second of this two-part series, EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with William Reilly, EPA Administrator under President George H.W. Bush, and Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under President George W. Bush. They discuss their time at EPA including efforts to simultaneously advance environmental protections and economic growth. They also discuss...

In the first of this two-part series, EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under President Obama and the White House National Climate Advisor under President Biden. They discuss Gina's time at EPA, including the agency's mission to safeguard public health and the environment through actions that rely on robust science, technol...

EELP attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Professor Andrew Mergen, faculty director of Harvard’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about the latest updates to the National Environmental Policy Act, including new agency implementing procedures, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Eagle County, and amendments included in the One Big Beautiful Bill recently passed by Congress. They talk abou...

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls speaks with the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Andrea Joy Campbell, and Vernice Miller-Travis, Executive Vice President and Environmental Justice Lead at the Metropolitan Group. They discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle federal environmental justice and equity programs, funding, and priorities, and what those changes mean for critical...

In this episode, EELP founding director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Carrie Jenks, EELP's executive director and Ari Peskoe, director of EELP's Electricity Law Initiative. They discuss President Trump's most recent executive orders on climate, energy, and the environment and what they are watching for as agencies begin to implement the administration’s directives to roll back...

Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe and EELP Fellow Eliza Martin discuss their new paper, Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers are Paying for Big Tech Power. As Amazon, Google, Meta, and other technology companies try to secure electricity for their new data centers, electric utilities are expanding their systems to serve them. Because utility companies profit by b...

EELP founding director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and Carrie Jenks, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program. They discuss the Trump administration’s actions to date on climate, energy, environment, and natural resources and break...

EELP senior staff attorney Hannah Perls speaks with speaks with Debbie Chizewer and Nick Leonard about environmental justice lawyering, including leveraging Title VI of the Civil Rights Act on behalf of frontline communities. Debbie Chizewer is a managing attorney with Earthjustice based in Chicago, where she leads the organization's Midwest litigation strategy. Nick Leonard is the executive direc...

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Olatunde Johnson, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Professor Johnson and Hannah discuss the history and evolution of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a crucial legal tool for the environmental justice movement. Earlier this year, a federal judge blocked EPA and the Department of Justice from enforcing their Title...

EELP senior staff attorney Sara Dewey speaks with Andy Mergen, Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School and former chief of the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Andy and Sara discuss the origin and evolution of presidential authority to designate national monuments under the Antiquities A...