In the News

The Second Circuit got the law wrong when it dismissed New York City’s lawsuit seeking damages from fossil fuel companies for climate change harms. The ruling is not limited to climate suits and could thwart others from using the courts to hold those responsible for external harms inflicted on society.

The environmental law field has been slow to diversify and there is widespread agreement that diversity is critical to providing high quality work that has a deep and lasting impact. So this winter and spring, in partnership with Green 2.0 and the New York City Bar’s Environmental Law Committee, we set about to explore the best strategies for proactively addressing the disparity.

Recently, the Biden Administration called for a review and possible updating of the SCC to ensure that it reflects the latest science. Some observers, including two prominent economists, Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics and Political Science and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, argue that the SCC is too flawed for use in policymaking. We think Stern and Stiglitz’s estimate is worth developing to indicate whether the SCC is compatible with reaching a two degrees Celsius goal, but not to supplant the SCC. 

Climate change — already a well-known threat to our weather patterns, infrastructure, electric grids, health and safety — also presents a profound and growing threat to our financial system. Public and private sector economic experts must — and increasingly are starting to — take steps to protect against that threat, including at the highest levels of the federal government.

The Biden administration has reverted to an Obama-era method for calculating the social cost of greenhouse gases, which will be key in evaluating government actions affecting climate change. NYU Law Professor Richard L. Revesz examines the change and says some related actions, including updating the discount rate used to evaluate future consequences, need to happen in the coming months.

The cost of greenhouse gas emissions was calculated to be $1 per ton under the Trump administration. The Biden administration is increasing it to $51 per ton. Professor Richard Revesz explains what that could mean in practice and the rationale behind it (at 01:14:52).

In addition to the federal centers of power, state and local governments play major roles in shaping U.S. climate policy, as do business interests and other stakeholders, including community and non-governmental organizations. We provide more detail on the workings of the three federal centers of power with respect to climate policy, followed by short discussions of influence wielded by states and other stakeholders.

The U.S. climate policy story has four important, interrelated dimensions: action at the federal level, action at the state level, policy innovation, and technical innovation. The federal story is one of legislative failure but some executive and innovation success, while the state story is one of variegated progress.

President Biden’s day-one presidential memorandum on "modernizing regulatory review" reasserts the importance of evidence, analysis, and expertise in regulatory decision-making. After a four-year long experiment in abandoning these norms of good governance, the Biden memorandum should comfort anyone who cares about cultivating a regulatory system that can improve the well-being of people in the United States.

On January 20, just hours after being sworn into office, President Joe Biden signed a presidential memorandum on modernizing regulatory review. This document embraces continuity on important components of the administrative state but, more importantly, it provides a significant blueprint for much-needed reform.