Caitlin McCoy – Environmental and Energy Law Program

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CleanLaw Podcast

CleanLaw: Harmonizing States’ Energy Utility Regulation Frameworks and Climate Laws with Elizabeth Stein, Justin Gundlach, and Caitlin McCoy

Discussion on their recent article, Harmonizing States’ Energy Utility Regulation Frameworks and Climate Laws: A Case Study of New York.

March 25, 2021

In the Media

5 takeaways from 2020’s energy battles

While both rulings are currently on appeal, the decisions could still hold up BLM’s effort to address methane under the new administration, said Hana Vizcarra, another staff attorney at Harvard.

January 26, 2021

In the Media

How Biden Can Start Protecting the Environment

With Congress still almost evenly split, and the Supreme Court not exactly stacked in favor of bold regulatory action, there are likely no landslides ahead. But that doesn’t mean Biden can’t get a lot done quickly. As soon as he’s sworn in, in fact, he can use the power of his office to issue executive orders—Trump, remember, tried to kill the Affordable Care Act hours after moving into the Oval Office—and then keep rolling from there. “It’s not just about putting things back together or returning to the status quo,” Caitlin McCoy, a staff attorney at the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard University, told Sierra magazine. “We need to strengthen regulations, because the climate crisis has accelerated dramatically over the last four years, and we have failed to take action on a federal level.” With no time to waste, here’s what Biden can do as soon as he takes that oath.

January 15, 2021

In the Media

Trump Made Cars Pollute Again and It’ll Take Biden Years to Reverse It

“That’s why it’s so important to move fast on this,” Caitlin McCoy, a staff attorney with the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, told VICE News. “Every time a car that consumes gasoline is sold, that just pushes out our timeline.”

December 18, 2020

In the Media

Biden ‘playbook’ in climate, energy feuds echoes Trump’s

“It’s not as simple as just saying, ‘We think we are going to do something with this, so we want to stay this litigation,'” said Hana Vizcarra, a staff attorney with the Harvard program. “You can’t just eliminate regulations or litigation in that manner.

“When the court decides the case is moot, that’s because the agency has moved forward with changing the regulation, and it’s no longer in force,” she said.

The Biden administration will need to decide which legal battles it will focus on first, said Caitlin McCoy, another staff attorney at Harvard. It may choose to emphasize litigation that has been going on for longer.

December 2, 2020

In the Media

How Biden can prevent climate action from failing in court

On the other hand, there are also limits to what a president can accomplish through a directive, said Caitlin McCoy, an attorney with Harvard’s Environmental & Energy Law Program.

December 2, 2020

In the Media

Biden Faces Moral Imperative to Advance Climate Regulations

“What happened under the Trump administration exposed all of the ways that interpretations of these statutes could be pushed to extremes. The Biden administration can learn from that,” Caitlin McCoy, a staff attorney at the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard University, told Sierra. “It’s not just about putting things back together or returning to the status quo. We need to strengthen regulations, because the climate crisis has accelerated dramatically over the last four years, and we have failed to take action on a federal level. This is an incredible opportunity to think creatively about how we can insulate these rules and regulations from future changes.”

November 24, 2020

In the Media

What A Biden Versus Trump Presidency Could Mean For Coal

Wyoming Public Radio’s Cooper McKim spoke with Caitlin McCoy, a staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program, about what that might look like.

November 2, 2020

In the Media

Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here’s how.

If Trump wins reelection, however, he and his deputies will probably try to shrink the federal government’s environmental role further, cement policy changes into law and finalize dozens of rollbacks they are working on now, said Caitlin McCoy, a staff attorney at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program.

October 30, 2020