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On May 23, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that run on fossil fuels. While these proposed standards are a good step forward and a much better approach to cutting climate pollution than the Trump administration’s misnamed "Affordable Clean Energy Rule," the EPA has room to strengthen them and greatly increase their climate and environmental justice benefits.

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.

On an episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick speaks with the co-founder of Navajo Power, Brett Isaac, about his commitment to increasing economic viability and energy reliability on tribal lands.

The main reason to control carbon is to protect the climate. But cleaning up the energy system has plenty of other benefits. Those benefits will flow to people in rural areas as well as urban ones, to national security and international development, and to nature itself.

This is the third in a series about episodes in season seven of Connect the Dots, the Center for Progressive Reform’s podcast on climate solutions. Subsequent posts will be posted throughout the summer. Episode three, “Energy Justice and Community Solar Power,” takes listeners to North Carolina and reveals how community solar has the power to lower […]

The federal Inflation Reduction Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) most recent power plant rules are big wins for climate and the environment. However, they both have their shortcomings, and one of them is their reliance on carbon capture and storage technologies to reach ambitious climate emissions goals. As a new Center for Progressive Reform report shows, carbon capture technologies are unproven and pose significant risks, especially to communities in states like Louisiana that are already overburdened by pollution.

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 […]

There are ways to meet North Carolina's carbon reduction goals and protect ratepayers from catastrophic increases in the cost of electricity, but the regulatory system is set up in a way that makes it more difficult to get to this result.