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How should the United States manage the largest biodiversity conservation system to be greater than the sum of its parts? This vexing question for the national wildlife refuges has received scant attention for the past quarter century. Now the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service), which administers the refuge system, has proposed a rule to guide specific refuge decisions to ensure they contribute to a national network rather than incrementally fray the web of conservation.

Fisheries regulation might seem to be unusual grounds for the U.S. Supreme Court to shift power away from federal agencies. But that is what the court seems poised to do in the combined cases of Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. vs. Department of Commerce.

In the history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — which President Richard Nixon signed just over 50 years ago on December 28, 1973 — no creature looms larger than the snail darter. As some lawmakers today seek to weaken the law’s promise to avoid human-caused extinctions, the long-ago battle over this little fish points […]

This summer, we marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States’ most significant climate change law. Many advocates for environmental justice, myself included, were disappointed by several features of the Act, including the greenlighting of certain fossil fuel infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, the law unlocked unprecedented streams of investment into clean energy via tax credits and direct spending mechanisms.

If a tree stands in the forest, and there’s no economist around to tabulate its benefits to humans, do those benefits still exist? For government agencies, the answer has long been, “No.” But the Biden administration is poised to change that.

Last month, the Biden administration rolled out the latest piece of its comprehensive Modernizing Regulatory Review initiative: a proposed guidance on how to account for “ecosystem services” in regulatory analysis. As I explained in my comments, if implemented well, this guidance will reinforce the administration’s broader efforts to reprogram an important step in the rulemaking process known as regulatory analysis so that it provides a fairer and fuller picture of the impacts of planned rules.

Too much of the Biden administration's regulatory effort remains focused on reversing Trump administration environmental rulemakings. This defensive unwinding of rollbacks preoccupies progressive reformers at the expense of implementing a broader vision. A recent proposed Endangered Species Act (ESA) rule to restore a “blanket rule” for conserving newly listed threatened species illustrates how the Interior Department can get trapped the anti-regulatory framing of the prior administration.

Following all the partisan rancor on the Hill lately, yesterday’s hearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the House Natural Resources Committee was a breath of fresh air. It focused on two important bills that can help Appalachian communities transition to a post-carbon economy in a way that addresses the harmful environmental […]

On May 1, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on whether the U.S. Department of Commerce has the authority to require fishermen to allow inspectors on board. At stake is the ability of agencies to write regulations that reasonably interpret laws even when they are ambiguous.