Legal Analysis – Page 18 – Environmental and Energy Law Program

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Clean Cars
Regulatory Rollbacks
Students

Beyond the Waiver: EPA’s Plan to End State GHG Vehicle Standards

The comment period recently closed for the Trump administration’s proposed Light Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards governing model years 2021-2026, known as the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule. Barring a miraculous change of heart from either party, it looks like the administration and California are eventually headed for a battle royale, with enormous implications for the auto industry, consumers, American federalism, and the planet.

November 5, 2018

Clean Air
EPA Mission Tracker
Power Sector

Review of New Source Review Changes in Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Proposal

This memorandum outlines the primary arguments and justifications for this change to NSR regulations furnished by EPA in its Proposed Rule issued on Aug. 31, 2018.

October 29, 2018

EPA Mission Tracker

Limiting Expertise in EPA’s Review of the Air Quality Standards

In its latest two-step, the EPA once again is deliberately narrowing the frame through which it obtains scientific analysis of the link between air pollution and public health. First, the agency is excluding qualified scientists from the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), the independent group charged by the Clean Air Act with providing the EPA with scientific advice on air quality standards. Second, the EPA disbanded the additional panel of experts it had formed to review the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Particulate Matter, leaving just the now re-constituted seven-member main CASAC to cover a Herculean scientific task.

October 24, 2018

EPA Mission Tracker

Comments by Public Health Experts on the Proposed Rule

As part of the public comment process, a group of 97 medical and public health experts affiliated with Harvard University submitted a detailed comment outlining the proposal’s misunderstanding of how science works. These signatories ranged from the leading epidemiologists who conducted some of the studies under attack to department chiefs at world-class hospitals who rely on advances in science to treat patients on a daily basis.

October 22, 2018

Power Sector
Regulatory Rollbacks

Legal Analysis of the Proposals to Repeal and Replace the Clean Power Plan

Memorandum on the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan and the proposed Affordable Clean Energy Rule.

October 11, 2018

Clean Air
Power Sector
Regulatory Rollbacks

Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – EPA Review

The stakes and and MATS background.

September 28, 2018

Clean Cars
Regulatory Rollbacks

CAFE Standards and the California Preemption Plan

In a nutshell, this is the agencies’ proposed preemption argument: The Energy Policy and Conservation Act has a broad, clear preemption provision which preempts state laws or regulations “related to fuel economy standards or average fuel economy standards” and California’s Advanced Clean Cars program regulations are “related to fuel economy standards” and are thus preempted.

August 24, 2018

Administrative Law

Errors and Inconsistencies in GAO’s Reports on the Congressional Review Act

New report argues GAO should reexamine and amend its March 2018 report and testimony, and should reexamine all of its major rule reports and, where necessary, amend them.

July 11, 2018

Clean Cars
Regulatory Rollbacks

California, CAFE Standards, and the Energy Policy and Conservation Act

Can California’s Clean Air Act waiver to implement its Advanced Clean Cars Program be preempted by NHTSA Fuel Economy Standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act? Here we summarize the state of current law.

June 19, 2018