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President Biden had ambitious plans, with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), to rebuild America’s aging infrastructure and revitalize our economy by fighting climate change through creating green jobs, reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and championing environmental justice. In the scant few years since the passage of these monumental laws, changes are already taking root. For example, in Maryland, funding is flowing to various sectors of the state — private and public — for grid modernization, transportation planning, funding green banks, and cleaning polluted air, and all of it in the service of environmental justice.

Picture a food system where the responsibility for environmental disasters related to industrial agriculture no longer falls on the shoulders of taxpayers or small-scale farmers. Instead, it places the onus exactly where it should be — on the corporations and industrial operators who are reaping massive profits from the factory farming model. The tide is turning, and it’s high time for these corporations to take responsibility for the system they've created.

Early on July 28, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released the proposed Phase II revisions of its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. The CEQ proposal deftly threads the needle, streamlining the NEPA process while protecting the environment and disadvantaged communities.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Sackett v. EPA dramatically curtails the permitting program covering wetlands. We urgently need to find strategies for saving the wetlands the Court left unprotected. We have a number of possible strategies and need to start work on implementing them immediately.

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 […]

The following post provides detailed analysis of the recent Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Supreme Court decision. It was originally posted to The George Washington Law Review and is  cross-posted with permission.  The current Supreme Court is not a friend of the administrative state. A majority of its members seem to take particular umbrage at administration of the regulatory programs […]

In Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the federal government’s power to protect wetlands. The Court required “Congress to enact exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between federal and state power and the Power of government over private property.”

On May 25, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its much-awaited decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This is the Supreme Court’s fourth foray over several decades into what count as protected “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act. This language provides the key jurisdictional hook for all important federal powers under the Act.

Earlier this year, the Richmond Times Dispatch reported that Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) scientists are working to reduce the daily flow of cancer-causing PCBs into the James River and keep the commonwealth's water clean and safe to drink.