The Endangered Species Act, which turned 50 years old on December 28, 2023, has been described as one of the most potent environmental law statutes ever enacted. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, discuss the initial bipartisan support for the act, the Supreme Court cases that shaped its implementation, and the success of the law in protecting numerous species. They also talk about how the Endangered Species Act could be improved and the risks that it may face in the future. Quotes “… I spent 33 years l ..read more

In this episode Harvard Law professor and EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, speaks with Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, Chair of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative’s Oil and Gas Executive Committee, Riley Duren, CEO and Founder of Carbon Mapper, Peter Zalzal Distinguished Counsel and Associate Vice President of Clean Air Strategies at Environmental Defense Fund, and EELP’s Executive Director, Carrie Jenks. They discuss international and domestic efforts to reduce methane emissions, the Global Methane Pledge from COP 26, the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter from COP 28, the Biden administration’s ..read more

Harvard Law Professor and EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, speaks with Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling and Jack Ewing, a New York Times business reporter who writes about the auto industry and electric vehicles. Jody, Kevin, and Jack discuss the three cases currently before the D.C. Circuit about how agencies set vehicle standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel efficiency. They also discuss the United Auto Workers strike, the economics and supply chain considerations for manufacturing electric vehicles, and how each may affect the B ..read more

Harvard Law professor and EELP’s founding director Jody Freeman, speaks with Andy Mergen, director of Harvard Law’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about a case the US Supreme Court will hear this fall, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which petitioners have asked the Court to overrule the Chevron doctrine—a legal doctrine that governs when a court should defer to an agency’s interpretation of a law. The case arises under the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which authorizes requiring commercial fishing vessels to carry onboard observers, but the st ..read more

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls talks with Susan Crawford, the John A. Riley clinical professor at Harvard Law School, and Michelle Mapp, an Equal Justice Works law fellow at the ACLU of South Carolina and former CEO of the South Carolina Community Loan Fund, about Susan's most recent book, Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm. Quotes: “Charleston is everything about America sort of distilled: enormous growth, enormous focus on profit, a deep rootedness in our history of racism and now facing a lot of pressures from both the water and from development.” —Susan Crawford (9:31 ..read more

Harvard Law School Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Law Steph Tai about the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sackett v. EPA. They discuss how the Court’s reliance on a dictionary definition of waters will drastically limit Clean Water Act protections: severely shrinking what qualifies as covered wetlands and streams, and as a result, enfeebling the federal government’s ability to protect the larger water bodies ..read more

Executive Director Carrie Jenks and EELP’s Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe discuss the Supreme Court’s recent National Pork Producers Council v. Ross decision. Ari explains how this case about a California law regulating sales of pork products will help insulate state clean energy laws from certain types of legal challenges. Mentioned links: https://statepowerproject.org/ Transcript: http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/CleanLaw-84.pdf ..read more

EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and EELP's executive director, Carrie Jenks speak again with Jay Duffy, litigation director at Clean Air Task Force, and Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling. Jody, Jay, and Kevin recently joined CleanLaw to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision about the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, and now, with Carrie, talk about EPA's recently proposed greenhouse gas regulation for the power sector and their views on how EPA's approaches were shaped by both the Supreme Court ..read more

EELP senior staff attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Dr. Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Sean Hecht, who is the managing attorney of Earth Justice's California Regional Office. They discuss the past, present, and future of disaster insurance, including the role that governments can play in helping design insurance markets that not only redistribute climate related risk, but can help mitigate that risk in an effective and equitable way. Carolyn and Sean are just speaking for themselves and not on behalf of their current or ..read more

Harvard Law Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Chet France, a former senior executive at EPA who oversaw the first national greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks in US history. Jody and Chet analyze EPA's most recent proposal to update greenhouse gas emission standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles and discuss how the implementation of those standards might be impacted by subsidies and incentives in the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act and future litigation. Mentioned links ..read more