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Minor Sinclair, Spencer Green | September 12, 2024

Announcing Three New Member Scholars at the Center for Progressive Reform

The summer of 2024 will be remembered for many things, but here at the Center for Progressive Reform, what most struck us was that it was the year that the administrative state broke through into public consciousness. From the unexpected virality of, and backlash against, Project 2025 — a massive right-wing legal manifesto as aggressive as it was arcane — to the Supreme Court regulatory rulings that made headlines for weeks, this year’s political news drove home that the work we do to protect the environment, the workforce, and public health matters very much to we, the people when these things are under attack. In this context, we approach the task of inviting new members to join us in our work with seriousness, but also with much excitement. This spring, we reviewed nearly two dozen exceptional candidates from the fields of law and public policy. Today, we are pleased to announce that we have a cohort of three excellent scholars to add to our ranks.

Grayson Lanza | August 8, 2024

CAFO Lagoons in North Carolina: A Case Study in Advocacy and State Administrative Law

Eastern North Carolina’s landscape is pocked with artificial lagoons holding a noxious liquid that causes suffering both for local residents and the global climate. The liquid? Hog manure, held in giant, open-air pits that are used by large-scale industrial facilities called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), In CAFOs, operators raise large numbers of animals in confined spaces that allow for easier feeding and waste management — and higher profits.

Robin Kundis Craig | July 1, 2024

What’s Next After Supreme Court Curbs Regulatory Power: More Focus on Laws’ Wording, Less on their Goals

The Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce means that federal courts will have the final say on what an ambiguous federal statute means. What’s not clear is whether most courts will still listen to expert federal agencies in determining which interpretations make the most sense.

James Goodwin | July 1, 2024

With Decision in Corner Post, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Assault on the Administrative State This Term Is Now Comprehensive and Complete

The U.S. administrative state does not merely protect Americans against those threats that we are unable to protect ourselves from on our own. It is essential to a healthy economy, it provides a crucial platform for democratic self-government, and it functions as a great social equalizer. All of this is now at risk after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives issued four separate decisions largely along ideological lines aimed at eviscerating this crucial institution. The administrative state has been built over the course of nearly 250 years, slowly and pragmatically, since the founding; it has taken just three decision days for the Court to undo much of that work.

James Goodwin | June 28, 2024

Unprincipled Supreme Court Decision on Agency Deference Harmful but Not Fatal to Public Protections, Administrative State

The American public is lucky to have the federal administrative state. Every day, it protects all of us from harms like heavily polluted air, consistently contaminated drinking water, and dangerous workplaces. It strengthens our democracy. And it ensures a fairer, healthier, and more inclusive economy. The good news is that the self-aggrandizing U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce does not change that. And that is because it cannot change that.

Daniel Farber | February 8, 2024

The Long Life and Sudden Demise of Federal Wetlands Protection

In 2023, the Supreme Court ended 50 years of broad federal protection of wetlands in Sackett v. United States. It is only when you look back at the history of federal wetlands regulation that you realize just how radical and destructive this decision was.

Hannah Wiseman | November 16, 2023

Invoicing Carbon Under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

A recent Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decision has thrown Pennsylvania’s actions on climate change into further disarray. In 2021, through regulatory action by its Department of Environmental Protection, Pennsylvania became a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a collection of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states that have agreed to cap emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from electric power plants with 25 megawatts or more of generating capacity. The cap includes an overall regional limit and a cap for each state. Power plants must purchase allowances or offset their emissions (or pursue other options noted below) to collectively meet the state cap. But lawsuits have challenged Pennsylvania’s entry into RGGI, and on November 1, a memorandum opinion of the Commonwealth Court declared that Pennsylvania’s scheme for auctioning CO2 allowances under the state’s RGGI cap was an unconstitutional tax. The court voided the rulemaking.

Uma Outka | November 13, 2023

Federal-State Conflicts Over Environmental Justice — Parts I and II

In his first month in office, President Biden signed an executive order, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” recommitting the federal government to climate action and environmental justice. In April 2023, an additional executive order, “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” reinforced the administration’s commitment to a “whole-of-government approach to environmental justice.” The renewed commitment to environmental justice is gratifying for all who care about these issues — and the challenge of accomplishing whole-of-government implementation is real. Among numerous complicating aspects of this shift, one key challenge is state resistance — even outright hostility — to federal environmental justice priorities.

Shelley Welton | November 8, 2023

Environmental Justice via Industrial Policy

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.