CleanLaw

Joe Goffman interviews Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus about his new book, "The Rule of Five," which describes the drama, strategy, cast of characters, and, above all, the lawyering, by both the litigators and the Justices, that led to the seminal Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. Transcript https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/39-Goffman-Lazarus-Transcript.p...

For a transcript of this episode see here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/38-Goffman-Bloomer-Transcript.pdf EELP Fellow Laura Bloomer speaks with our Executive Director Joe Goffman about how the Trump Administration is using regulatory rollbacks to advance new interpretations of the Clean Air Act that restrict EPA’s authority to address climate change and threaten the agenc...

Transcript of this episode https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Hana-and-Alice-Hill-Transcript-Final-1.pdf Hana Vizcarra talks with Alice Hill, senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. A former judge and federal prosecutor, Judge Hill served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the Natio...

Transcript of this episode here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ari-and-Joe-FERC-Transcript-Final-1.pdf In this episode our executive director Joe Goffman interviews Electricity Law Initiative director Ari Peskoe about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's December, 2019 order on PJM’s capacity auction. Ari's recent op-ed on this rule https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-co...

For a full transcript of this episode click here http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Ari-and-Jason-Burwen-Transcript-Final.pdf Ari Peskoe talks with Jason Burwen, vice president for policy at the US Energy Storage Association. They discuss new electricity market rules that aim to pay storage resources for the value they provide to our energy system. https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2020/01/...

See here for a transcript of this episode. http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Alex-Barron-and-Joe-Transcription.pdf Our executive director Joe Goffman speaks with Smith College Professor of Environmental Science and Policy Alex Barron. Alex is a former senior official in EPA’s policy office and discusses his work with economists and other experts to understand the strengths and weaknes...

For a full transcript of this recording please click here http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Samantha-Ross-and-Hana-Transcript.pdf In this episode our staff attorney Hana Vizcarra talks with Samantha Ross, former Chief of Staff and Special Counsel at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and former Special Counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission. They discuss the impo...

In this episode our EELP Legal Fellow Laura Bloomer speaks with Gretchen Goldman, Research Director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, about the Trump administration’s changes to EPA’s process for reviewing the national ambient air quality standards, or NAAQS. They discuss the importance of revising these standards to keep pace with current science, and...

Hana Vizcarra speaks with Erik Landry, SM ’18 and research associate in the MIT Office of the Vice President for Research. They talk about energy companies’ use of scenarios in climate-related financial disclosure and discuss his new white paper. "In 2017, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), established by the G20 Financial Stability Board, provided a guiding framework...

In this episode, Caitlin and Joe talk about their white paper on the Repeal of the Clean Power Plan and the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. They also discuss the litigation challenging the repeal and new rule, with updates including petitioners’ motion to hold the case in abeyance pending EPA's issuing the final New Source Review rule, which was initially included in the ACE proposal. The other pape...

Hana Vizcarra talks with Jesse Keenan, a social scientist and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School in Science, Technology and Public Policy. They discuss climate-related data, financing community development to encourage adaptation, and recent work about what drives coastal adaptation decisions that communities make. Jesse has several recent papers on th...

In this episode Joe speaks with climate economist Gernot Wagner about his latest paper (with co-authors) showing how climate-economic modeling can account not only for predicted damages linked to climate change but also for the uncertainty and risk associated with climate change. Gernot also talks about his work with the late Martin Weitzman, one of the most influential climate and environmental e...

In this episode Joe Goffman, our Executive Director, talks with Kathy Fallon Lambert, Senior Advisor with The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Co-founder of the Science Policy Exchange. Kathy was part of a team of researchers who evaluated the Regulatory Impact Analysis for EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy rule, to determine w...

In this episode our executive director Joe Goffman speaks again with Clean Air Task Force senior counsel Jonathan Lewis about biofuels. They discuss the 5 lessons policy-makers seeking to promote innovation can learn from the failure of the renewable fuel standard as a policy, why aviation is a critical transportation market to target for emissions reductions, and the low carbon fuel standards of...

In this episode Joe Goffman, our Executive Director, talks with our Climate, Clean Air and Energy Fellow Caitlin McCoy about part one of the clean car rule rollback. They discuss EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s final rule, issued on September 19th, that preempts California’s greenhouse gas standards and withdraws California’s Clean Air Act waiver. Transcript available...

In this episode of CleanLaw Joe Goffman speaks with Clean Air Task Force senior counsel Jonathan Lewis about bioenergy. They discuss the history of biofuel mandates, the challenges of lifecycle analysis, the problems associated with land-use, the difficulty in meeting annual mandates, and talk about what US biofuel policy should really be focused on. At around the 30-minute mark the conversation m...

Robin and Hana talk about the legal landscape of offshore drilling, and the proposed rule changes and executive orders that may affect where and how oil companies operate. Transcript available here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CleanLaw-23-Robin-Hana-Offshore-Drilling.pdf

Ari Peskoe talks to Matt Christiansen, legal advisor to FERC Commissioner Richard Glick, about the Federal Power Act and Matt’s recent article co-authored with Commissioner Glick about FERC and climate change. Ari and Matt discuss recent federal court decisions about Zero Emission Credits (ZECs) and what they mean for the future of state electricity policies. Then, Matt outlines his article and ex...

Joe Goffman speaks with Bill Becker, former Executive Director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Bill and Mary Becker have just published a report on the Trump proposal to weaken vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards. They describe the effects this proposal will have on public health, state compliance with the Clean Air Act, and industry operations. In addition to increasing...

In this episode, our Climate, Clean Air & Energy Fellow Caitlin McCoy speaks with Harvard Law student Michelle Melton about the proposed changes to the fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. They discuss the lead up to and details of the proposed rules, and talk about ongoing and future litigation around these rules. We recorded this in early February, so there are refer...

Ari Peskoe talks to Jacob Mays about capacity markets. Jacob explains why regional power markets adopted capacity markets and outlines his research on the connection between risk and power plant operating and capital costs. Jacob and his colleagues published a paper on this topic entitled Asymmetric Risk and Fuel Neutrality in Capacity Markets - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=...

Ari Peskoe talks with Bill Hogan, Professor of Global Energy Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. After laying out fundamental principles of wholesale market design, Bill discusses the recent proposal filed by PJM about reforming price formation in its reserve market. Bill explains why the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should find that prices in the market are currently unjust and unreason...

Robin Just speaks with Caitlin McCoy about developments in the Keystone XL permitting process, now that President Trump has issued both a new permit for the pipeline and two new Executive Orders that relate to pipelines, and other infrastructure. Transcript available here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CleanLaw-17-Robin-Caitlin-Keystone.pdf

Caitlin McCoy speaks with Sarah Light, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania about her article, Regulatory Horcruxes, in which she describes how regulatory programs can be split up among federal agencies, state agencies, and even private actors, and how that fragmentation can insulate programs from future deregulatory actio...

How can business law better incentivize companies to take environmental consequences into account? In her latest article, Wharton Prof. Sarah Light, asks this question. EELP Staff Attorney Hana Vizcarra spoke with her about her ideas. Read Prof. Light’s full article in the Stanford Law Review here https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/the-law-of-the-corporation-as-environmental-law/ Tran...