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

Senior Staff Attorney Sara Dewey speaks with Hannah Perls talk about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. They discuss the regulatory and legal implications of the derailment, including who is in charge of the response and the different roles that federal agencies play. They also discuss the cleanup order issued by EPA and possible federal reforms to railroad safety regulations. You can find a transcript of this episode here http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Transcript-78-East-Palestine-Sara-and-Hannah.pdf ..read more

Carrie Jenks, our executive director, speaks with Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, and Dan Zimmerle, the director of the Methane Emissions Program at Colorado State University. They discuss EPA's recently released supplemental proposal to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector, and how the regulatory framework EPA has proposed is designed to enable the use of advanced technologies to better detect and therefore reduce emissions. You can read more about EPA's proposed rule in our white paper EPA’s Supplemental Methane Proposal—A Comprehensive Regulatory Framewor ..read more

EELP Legal Fellow Abby Husselbee speaks with Cory-Ann Wind, the Program Manager of Oregon’s Clean Fuels Program in the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Cory has worked for ODEQ for over 29 years, the last 12 in fuels, transportation, and climate policy. Abby and Cory discuss clean fuel standards and their benefits, Oregon’s program and history, prior legal challenges to their programs, and some lessons learned.  Here's the link to at transcript of this episode http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Transcript-Cory-Ann-and-Abby.pdf ..read more