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A list of environmental and climate-themed book recommendations by Center for Progressive Reform staff in honor of Earth Day.

The landmark Inflation Reduction Act gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) $3 billion to fund a wide range of pollution reduction, clean energy, and climate resilience measures in the nation’s most marginalized communities. At issue now is how the agency will allocate the funds to eligible communities and projects.

As you’ve probably heard, the Biden administration has proposed aggressive new targets for greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles. That’s great news. One really important aspect of the proposal relates to the justification for the proposal rather than the proposal itself. Following a recent trend, the justification is based on the factors specified by Congress rather than on a purely economic analysis. That may not sound like much, but it’s a really big deal. Among other things, this will shift influence on the regulatory process somewhat away from economists and toward lawyers.

On March 29, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a landmark resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion on state obligations relating to climate change and the consequences of breaching them under several sources of international law, including the UN Charter, human rights treaties, and international customary law. The import of both the request and the opinion, however, is not just about Earth’s climate system and the extent of state obligations for protecting it; it is also about the potential for more equitable, just, and effective international governance.

Chester, Pennsylvania, located in Delaware County just southwest of Philadelphia, was founded in 1681, making it the oldest city in the state. Situated directly on the Delaware River, Chester was a manufacturing and industrial community for much of its history, though that activity began to decline starting in the 1950s. That legacy and other factors make the city of 32,000 potentially prone to a catastrophic toxic flooding event, now and in the future as the effects of climate change continue to intensify.

The Maryland Senate has just one day left to pass a bill that would deliver greater energy savings for Marylanders through the EmPOWER program — the state’s energy efficiency and weatherization program. The bill would build on the success of the EmPOWER program by ensuring lower energy bills for low-wealth Marylanders, as well as greater public health and climate benefits that coincide with improved energy efficiency.

As the Center for Progressive Reform enters our third decade of advocating for progressive policy for the public good, our country is facing wholly unprecedented challenges: A suffering climate. Unimaginable inequality and inequities that dispossess the majority. A faltering democracy. The Center is extremely gratified to have three new Board members join us and lend their deep expertise and wide range of experiences as we tackle these challenges and more.

The headline news is that Minnesota has adopted a 2040 deadline for a carbon-free grid. The headline is accurate, but the law in question contains a lot of other interesting features that deserve attention.

Everyone should have a fair chance to live the healthiest life possible, but that’s not always the case for many of our communities. That's particularly true of overburdened communities that bear the brunt of pollution and toxic chemical exposures. But help may be on the way in Maryland in the form of the Climate, Labor, and Environmental Equity Act of 2023, and I testified in strong support of the bill on February 23.