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On April 23, the Baltimore Sun published an op-ed lambasting efforts by localities and states to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for decades of misinformation about the dangers of their products. These hazards to the public’s health, welfare, and safety are now coming home to roost in the form of extreme weather, increased flooding […]

On April 24, The Washington Postpublished an op-ed that sought to blame an unusual source for the high energy and gas prices Americans are now facing: justice. Specifically, it claims that these price increases are the result of state and local governments trying to hold Big Oil accountable for the climate-related harms their constituents are continuing to suffer. I submitted a letter to the editor debunking the op-ed’s argument, noting that the real cause of higher gas prices is the illegal war in Iran.

On April 18, The New York Times dropped a bombshell with a story that offered a unique window into the political inner world of the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on a series of leaked memos, the story retraces the events leading up to the Court’s extraordinary decision to halt the enforcement of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, even while the case was still pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In early April, The Washington Post published an op-ed trashing state and local efforts to hold Big Oil and Gas accountable under the law for the lies they told about their products’ connections to climate change and damages they inflict on people and the planet. I submitted a letter to the editor presenting counterpoints to the op-ed’s claims, which included the absurd notion that insulating some of the biggest companies on earth from even a small measure of justice is somehow a vital “national security” interest. The Post chose not to run that letter, so I’m sharing it with readers here.

This Earth Day, environmental advocates are looking backward as well as forward. With the U.S. federal government so dramatically overhauling environmental policy, history shows how American social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to preserve public lands and pass laws protecting human health. “I’ve been trying to look through the history of the United States to understand how we’ve gotten where we are,” said Alejandro Camacho, a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and co-author of Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of U.S. Environmental Law, which comes out on Earth Day, April 22, 2026. “Prior generations did meet the moment and at least partially addressed some of the major problems that were in front of them.” Camacho discusses the book in this lightly edited transcript.

If the Trump EPA successfully repeals the endangerment findings for vehicles and stationary sources, states will be the only resort for climate action. A key question is how the repeals would impact state power relating to carbon emissions. The bottom line answers are: (1) the impact on state power to regulate tailpipe emissions seems unclear but could be positive; (2) there would be no effect on state power to regulate stationary sources like power plants; (3) plaintiffs suing oil companies would probably benefit.

At its core, the unitary executive theory (UET) says that the president can fire anyone in the executive branch for any reason or no reason. Although the UET purports to be based on originalism, it has become clear that the U.S. Supreme Court has no interest at all in examining the history. Supreme Court conservatives think complete presidential control is simply the ideal way to run the government. The deep flaws in that theory are now becoming apparent.

In 2025, President Donald Trump rolled out new initiatives at a dizzying rate. That story, in one form or another, dominated the news. This year, much of the news will again be about Trump, but he will have less control of the narrative. Legal and political responses to Trump will play a greater role, as will economic developments. Trump’s anti-environmental crusade may run into strong headwinds.

A recent U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo proclaimed the Trump administration’s commitment to “deregulating at an unprecedented scale.” To advance that agenda, the memo tells agencies to put a thumb on the scale in favor of rollbacks. In contrast, most lawyers and economists would say that regulation and deregulation are subject to the same rules. Sometimes, the conventional wisdom is right.