Articles

In an order issued today, the D.C. Circuit agreed with our argument that Dalton Trucking v. EPA should be argued in the 9th Circuit and not in the D.C. Circuit.  The case involves our challenge to EPA’s grant of waiver from federal preemption under the Clean Air Act for CARB’s nonroad diesel engine rules, which set … ...

Ever since the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. NRDC, federal administrative agencies tasked with implementing statutes have been given broad discretion to determine the scope of ambiguous statutory terms.  As a result, agencies have sought to maximize their powers whenever Congress uses an even arguably ambiguous word or p ...

As the holidays approach, California is siphoning billions of dollars in auction revenue proceeds generated under CARB’s cap-and-trade program governing greenhouse gas emissions for purposes that are unrelated to greenhouse gas emissions.  Fast speed rail, disadvantaged communities (identified by zip codes), natural resources “divers ...

If you thought 23,000 pages would be sufficient to document a federal government action closing roads and trails in a national forest, you’d be wrong.  That’s the number of pages it took the Forest Service to “summarize” its action to close routes in California’s Plumas National Forest to off-roaders.  Most ...

So far, twenty-five states and political subdivisions have challenged EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which requires existing and new power plants nationwide to favor wind and solar resources over coal and natural gas when generating electricity.  In addition, dozens of private companies, rural cooperatives, trade associations, and labor unions hav ...

Monday of this week, I argued that EPA’s decision allowing California to enforce its statewide controls over emissions of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides from tractors and other nonroad diesel vehicles should be vacated by the D.C. Circuit.  The federal Clean Air Act preempts all state mobile source emissions standards but provides th ...

The briefing in our lawsuit challenging the auction component of CARB’s cap-and-trade regulation has been completed for many months, but the California Court of Appeal, Third District, has yet to set a date for oral argument.  Although the panel was appointed last June, we wont know the identities of the judges until an oral argument … ...

Last week, the California Legislature resoundingly rejected Governor’s Brown’s efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions beyond the levels required by AB 32, which requires California to reduce emissions in the state to 1990 levels by 2020.  The proposed new law, known oddly enough as SB 32, would have required substantial further reduct ...

What else can one say about the authors of the so-called Clean Power Plan?  On August 3, 2015, EPA promulgated a sweeping new regulatory scheme to control virtually all aspects of energy generation, distribution, and use in the United States.  The rules require power plants to curtail carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 30% over the next ...