CleanLaw

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...

Lowry Yankwich, a recent graduate of Harvard Law, speaks with Doug Christel, policy analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office. They discuss the approval of the South Fork Wind Project, which is only the second commercial-scale offshore wind project to be approved in federal waters. The project is small but has garnered outsized att...

Our executive director Carrie Jenks speaks with Kate Konschnik of Duke University about EPA’s recently proposed methane rules for new and existing oil and natural gas sources. They discuss some of the input EPA is seeking from stakeholders related to advanced technologies and how regulations could enable their deployment to achieve emission reductions. Learn more in our white paper, EPA’s Methane...

Our staff attorney Hana Vizcarra speaks with Madison Condon, associate professor of law at Boston University who studies how climate change relates to corporate governance, market risk, and regulation. They discuss her research on how the market has failed to properly price climate risk and how the Securities and Exchange Commission might address that failure through new regulation. You can read M...

Our executive director Carrie Jenks speaks with Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling. Kevin co-chairs the firm’s Environmental and Energy Practice Group, Energy Industry Group, and ESG Practice. Kevin and Carrie discuss what is at stake with the appeals to the Supreme Court of the D.C. Circuit decision to vacate the Trump Administration’s Affordable Clean Energy Rule fo...

Legal Fellow Hannah Perls speaks with Aminta Ossom, a Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, where she focuses on equality, inclusion, and economic and social rights. They discuss how looking at environmental problems through a human rights lens can provide new insights and legal strategies for addressing environmental injustice in the United States and beyond. The...

Our Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe speaks with Brandon Smithwood, Senior Director of Policy at Dimension Renewable Energy. They talk about business models for development of small-scale renewable energy and storage systems. Please see here for a transcript of this episode https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CleanLaw-59-Ari-and-Brandon-Smithwood-on-Distributed-En...

EELP Staff Attorney Hana Vizcarra and Fellow Hannah Perls talk about the progress of the Biden administration on climate and environmental priorities now that the first hundred days have passed. We originally posted this as a video, which you can view at the link below. Transcript of this episode https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CleanLaw-58-Hannah-and-Hana-Assess-Biden-Progr...

EELP Fellow Hannah Perls speaks with Naeema Muhammad and Elizabeth Haddix. Naeema is a life-long activist and the Organizing Co-Director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, where she has worked for the past two decades leading state-wide campaigns and supporting grassroots efforts for environmental and social justice. Elizabeth is a Managing Attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee fo...

In this episode EELP Fellow Hannah Perls spoke with Naeema Muhammad and Alexis Andiman. Naeema is a life-long activist and the Organizing Co-Director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, where she has worked for the past two decades leading state-wide campaigns and supporting grassroots efforts for environmental and social justice. Alexis Andiman is a staff attorney with the Sustai...

Note: this episode was recorded in January, 2021. In this episode our staff attorney Caitlin McCoy was joined by Justin Gundlach and Elizabeth Stein to discuss their recent article "Harmonizing States' Energy Utility Regulation Frameworks and Climate Laws. A Case Study of New York."  Justin is a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. His work fo...

Ari Peskoe, speaks with Scott Hempling, adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center about Scott’s new book, Regulating Mergers and Acquisitions of the U.S. Electric Utilities: Industry Concentration and Corporate Complication. Scott has also written about FERC’s review of utility merger applications in a 2018 Energy Law Journal Article entitled Inconsistent with the Public Interest:...

In this episode our executive director Joe Goffman interviews climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Texas Tech Climate Center and Professor in Public Policy and Public Law in the Department of Political Science. Professor Hayhoe talks about the cutting edge science of climate change attribution, how she tries to help the public understand the reality of climate change by making it lo...

In this episode, our Electricity Law Initiative director Ari Peskoe speaks with Matto Mildenberger, assistant professor of political science at the UC Santa Barbara, about the politics of carbon pricing. Note - we recorded this episode in late October, prior to the presidential election. This is a link to the article they discuss http://bostonreview.net/science-nature-politics/matto-mildenberger-l...

In this episode, our executive director Joe Goffman speaks again with Cynthia Giles, our guest fellow and former Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. They discuss her ongoing work examining how well environmental rules do in ensuring compliance with pollution and waste reduction requirements, where they fail, and how to make sure they succeed. You can f...

In our 50th episode of CleanLaw, Erin Brockovich speaks with Caitlin McCoy about some of the major water issues in the U.S. today and what people can do to work toward better water quality in their communities and beyond. Their conversation covers community science, tips for effective advocacy, legacy water pollution issues, and the problems with current laws and regulations. Erin shares an inspir...

Robin Just interviews our former EELP Fellow Laura Bloomer about changes in the Department of the Interior under the Trump administration. Laura interviewed dozens of former DOI career staff, former political appointees, and natural resources and American Indian law experts and distills their insights in our newest white paper - link below. She breaks down how these changes have been implemented,...

In this episode Caitlin McCoy talks with Aladdine Joroff, clinical instructor and staff attorney at our Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about the recent decision by the Massachusetts Attorney General disapproving Brookline, MA’s law seeking to limit the use of natural gas in buildings, and comments the Clinic submitted on behalf of Mothers Out Front Massachusetts, arguing that Brooklin...

"The progress is uneven. We are not cleaning the air in an even way for everybody." In this episode our executive director Joe Goffman speaks with Francesca Dominici, Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative. They discuss her team’s state-of-the-art science that shows air polluti...