CleanLaw

Harvard Law Professor and EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, speaks with Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling and Jack Ewing, a New York Times business reporter who writes about the auto industry and electric vehicles. Jody, Kevin, and Jack discuss the three cases currently before the D.C. Circuit about how agencies set vehicle standards to reduce greenhouse gas emiss...

Harvard Law Professor and EELP’s founding director Jody Freeman, speaks with Andy Mergen, director of Harvard Law’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about a case the US Supreme Court will hear this fall, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which petitioners have asked the Court to overrule the Chevron doctrine — a legal doctrine that governs when a court should defer to an agency’s...

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls talks with Susan Crawford, the John A. Riley clinical professor at Harvard Law School, and Michelle Mapp, an Equal Justice Works law fellow at the ACLU of South Carolina and former CEO of the South Carolina Community Loan Fund, about Susan's most recent book, Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm. Read the transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-...

Harvard Law School Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Law Steph Tai about the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sackett v. EPA. They discuss how the Court’s reliance on a dictionary definition of waters will drastical...

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hanna Perls, Executive Director Carrie Jenks, and Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe break down recent changes to federal permitting passed as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, aka the debt ceiling bill, which President Biden signed on June 3rd. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CleanLaw-85.pdf Mentioned link: https://ww...

Executive Director Carrie Jenks and EELP’s Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe discuss the Supreme Court’s recent National Pork Producers Council v. Ross decision. Ari explains how this case about a California law regulating sales of pork products will help insulate state clean energy laws from certain types of legal challenges. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/upload...

EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and EELP's executive director, Carrie Jenks speak again with Jay Duffy, litigation director at Clean Air Task Force, and Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling. Jody, Jay, and Kevin recently joined CleanLaw to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision about the Obama Administration’s...

EELP senior staff attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Dr. Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Sean Hecht, who is the managing attorney of Earth Justice's California Regional Office. They discuss the past, present, and future of disaster insurance, including the role that governments can play in helping design insurance markets that...

Harvard Law Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Chet France, a former senior executive at EPA who oversaw the first national greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks in US history. Jody and Chet analyze EPA's most recent proposal to update greenhouse gas emission standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicle...

Executive Director Carrie Jenks speaks with Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus about his recently released book, The Making of Environmental Law, Second Edition. In this long-awaited update, Professor Lazarus describes how environmental law has developed over the last two decades and explores new challenges for the field, including the shifting role of the judiciary, long overdue efforts...

Carrie Jenks and Hannah Oakes Dobie talk about EPA’s latest regulation to address interstate ozone pollution, the “Good Neighbor Plan.” They discuss how the rule’s new design features will refine EPA’s longstanding air transport program to require power plants to reduce smog-forming pollutants. You can read more about the 2023 “good neighbor plan” in the link below. This podcast was recorded on Ap...

Senior Staff Attorney Sara Dewey speaks with Hannah Perls talk about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. They discuss the regulatory and legal implications of the derailment, including who is in charge of the response and the different roles that federal agencies play. They also discuss the cleanup order issued by EPA and possible federal reforms to railroad safety regulations. You can f...

In our first CleanLaw Quick Take*, our Executive Director Carrie Jenks and Staff Attorney Hannah Perls walk through the latest updates on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Hannah explains how the US Army Corps of Engineers' announcement about its upcoming draft environmental impact statement might affect the future of the pipeline, and how litigation between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Army Co...

Recent HLS graduate Lowry Yankwich speaks with Earthjustice attorney Chris Eaton about the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's proposed Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Revisions rule for oil and gas operations in the Outer Continental Shelf. This rule is intended to protect workers and prevent oil spills, and is part of the reforms instituted since the Deepwater Horizon tra...

Carrie Jenks, our executive director, speaks with Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, and Dan Zimmerle, the director of the Methane Emissions Program at Colorado State University. They discuss EPA's recently released supplemental proposal to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector, and how the regulatory framework EPA has proposed is designed to enable the use of advan...

EELP Legal Fellow Abby Husselbee speaks with Cory-Ann Wind, the Program Manager of Oregon’s Clean Fuels Program in the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Cory has worked for ODEQ for over 29 years, the last 12 in fuels, transportation, and climate policy. Abby and Cory discuss clean fuel standards and their benefits, Oregon’s program and history, prior legal challenges to their programs,...

Director of our Electricity Law Initiative Ari Peskoe spoke with Staff Attorney Hannah Oakes about electric transmission regulation and how it has disincentivized regional transmission build out. They discuss Ari’s work in recent FERC transmission proceedings, and how Congress, states, and utilities can help catalyze transmission development to enable the clean energy transition. Transcript: https...

Hannah Perls speaks with Professor Rebecca Bratspies at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform, which works with community groups seeking to obtain full and meaningful participation in environmental decision-making. They discuss recent environmental justice legislation (EJ) in New York, and what these legislative wins...

Lowry Yankwich, a recent graduate of HLS, speaks with Roger Martella, GE's Chief Sustainability Officer. They discuss GE’s recent sustainability commitments and how the company is tackling its operational and downstream emissions across the aviation, public health, and power sectors. A note for our listeners – this episode was recorded before Congress passed of the Inflation Reduction Act. For a t...

Harvard Law Professor and EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Greg Dotson, an associate professor at the University of Oregon School of Law and recent Democratic chief counsel to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Jody and Greg discuss the climate and clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and...

EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Jay Duffy, an attorney at Clean Air Task Force, and Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling, about what the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA means for their clients and the potential implications for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sect...

Professor Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, Professor Richard Lazarus, and EELP Executive Director Carrie Jenks discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA. They break down the majority decision, concurrence, and dissent, and discuss how the major questions doctrine could affect EPA regulations addressing greenhouse gases and other key regulatory...

Professors Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and Professor Richard Lazarus discuss the Supreme Court case West Virginia v. EPA. The Court's decision in this case will address the scope of EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, potentially impacting future EPA rules. Transctipt: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2...

EELP Legal Fellow Hannah Perls speaks with Joel Scata, a Water and Climate Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he works on clean water and climate change adaptation policy solutions. They discuss the ins and outs of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which, for the past fifty years, has helped define floodplain development by issuing federally-backed flood insurance...

Our founding director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Chet France, who served as a senior executive at EPA and led the development of vehicle pollution standards at the agency, including overseeing, during the Obama administration, the first national greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks. They talk about the development of the clean car rules...