Latest news with #MichaelGerrard
New York Times
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Can California Set Its Own Air Pollution Rules?
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to block California rules that would ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. The vote was 246 to 164, with 35 Democrats joining Republicans to approve the measure. If the Senate also votes to block California's E.V. plan, the decision could have wide-reaching effects, including for the 11 other states that have adopted the Golden State's standards. Together, these states make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. auto market. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, California can receive waivers to pass air-pollution standards that are stricter than the national rules. California's ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars is one of the most ambitious climate policies in the nation. 'The California waiver is very, very important, especially since motor vehicles are now the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,' said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. The regulations are expected to help speed the transition to electric vehicles and requires automakers to ensure that zero-emission, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen-powered vehicles make up 35 percent of new passenger cars and light trucks they sell starting next year. In 2024, about one in four cars registered in California were electric. California's climate policies have drawn the ire of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, in part because they can influence large swaths of the economy far from the West Coast. In holding the vote, the House ignored a decision from the Government Accountability Office, an independent government watchdog. The Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan adviser to the body on rules and procedures, has also said that Congress cannot use its proposed method to block California's plans. When Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, California had the worst air pollution in the nation. And while the legislation prevented all other states from establishing their own air quality standards, legislators made an exception for smog-choked California. Under the law, California can ask the Environmental Protection Agency for a waiver if it wants to establish its own, stricter emissions standards for cars and trucks. As of 2024, it had received more than 100 waivers. Other states are allowed to adopt California rules under certain circumstances. These waivers were the legal mechanism through which California (and then other states) established limits on future sales of gas-powered cars. The state has also used waivers to limit emissions from trucks. In 2019, the first Trump administration revoked California's waiver for the first time. The Biden administration reinstated it in March 2022. California's air quality regulator has estimated that the state's regulations would cut statewide greenhouse gas emissions from cars, pickup trucks, and S.U.V.s in half by 2040. But California's E.P.A. waiver is not the most consequential policy affecting E.V. sales in the U.S., according to a recent analysis from Harvard University's Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. Getting rid of the waivers is projected to affect E.V. market share by 2030 by less than 1 percent. Until recently, several initiatives were working together to remove some of the biggest barriers to widespread electric vehicle adoption. The federal government provided $3 billion to build E.V. chargers on highways. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offered tax incentives for consumers, which brought prices closer to gas-powered vehicles. And other tax credits for critical minerals and batteries were bringing costs down for automakers. But the Trump administration has paused spending on highway chargers, and other incentives, like the E.V. tax credits, may soon face rollback attempts in Congress. 'When you take away multiple different policies, they have compounding effects that's bigger than the sum of taking away each policy,' said Elaine Buckberg, an economist and senior fellow at Harvard and co-author of the analysis. Perhaps most important feature of the California requirements is their function as a backstop to federal spending. If the federal funding and tax incentives go away, but California waivers remain in place, automakers would still have to transition to meet the mandates. Even without the extra support of California's rules, Buckberg said, E.V. sales are projected to grow. Current estimates show E.V.s making up 48 percent of car sales by 2030. But if the waivers, the highway charger funding, and the tax credits all went away, Buckberg's analysis suggests, E.V. market share would still reach 32 percent by that time — more than triple what it was in 2024. Has your science project been canceled? Help us with our reporting. We're looking to interview scientists doing field work that has been halted due to federal funding cuts. If you're a fired government employee, a university researcher who has had a federal grant canceled, or have had to shut down climate-related research as a result of the admininstration's recent changes, we want to talk to you. Please reach out to climateforward@ or respond to this email, and tell us what you were working on, the current status of your job or grant, and whether you're willing to talk on the record. Fact-checking the 'President who follows science' On Earth Day, the White House posted a page on its website titled, 'We Finally Have a President Who Follows Science.' The New York Times annotated a selection of the statements on that page to fact-check those claims. The White House did not respond to a detailed list of questions. In the first hours of his second term, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization. Since then, the Trump administration has slashed budgets for federal science and health agencies, fired federal scientists, censored research and threatened universities, and dismissed hundreds of volunteer scientists who were preparing an important update to the country's flagship climate assessment. The president has said his goals are to minimize the regulations that have stifled industry, and to promote more energy production, which he sees as central to economic growth. — Rebecca Dzombak Read more. Days after Trump commits to seabed mining, two sides face off Less than a week after President Trump signed an executive order to accelerate seabed mining, the U.S. government received its first permit application from the Metals Company, one of the most ardent proponents of the as yet unproven practice. On Tuesday, the company's chief executive, Gerard Barron, was also on hand in Washington for a contentious hearing in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. He likened Mr. Trump's move to a 'starting gun' in the race to extract minerals like cobalt and nickel from potato-size nodules lying in the frigid, pitch-black, two-and-a-half-mile-deep sands of the Pacific Ocean floor. Republican and Democratic committee members clashed over how much weight should be given to environmental concerns about the practice. The Trump administration has said it will consider issuing permits for mining in territorial U.S. waters and also in international waters. — Max Bearak Read more. Thanks for being a subscriber. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here. And follow The New York Times on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and TikTok at @nytimes. Reach us at climateforward@ We read every message, and reply to many!
Boston Globe
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's new energy order puts states' climate laws in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice
'American energy dominance is threatened when State and local governments seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authorities,' Trump said in the order. Advertisement He said the attorney general should focus on state laws targeting climate change, a broad order that unmistakably puts liberal states in the crosshairs of Trump's Department of Justice. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Michael Gerrard, director of the Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it would be an 'extraordinarily bold move' for the federal government to go to court to try to overturn a state climate law. Gerrard said the quickest path for Trump's Department of Justice is to try to join ongoing lawsuits where courts are deciding whether states or cities are exceeding their authority by trying to force the fossil fuel industry to pay for the cost of damages from climate change. Advertisement Democrats say they won't back down Democratic governors vowed to keep fighting climate change. California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of 'turning back the clock' on the climate and said his state's efforts to reduce pollution 'won't be derailed by a glorified press release masquerading as an executive order.' New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, cochairs of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which includes 22 governors, said they 'will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis.' Climate superfund laws are gaining traction Vermont and New York are currently fighting challenges in federal courts to climate superfund laws passed last year. Trump suggested the laws 'extort' payments from energy companies and 'threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.' Both are modeled on the 45-year-old federal superfund law, which taxed petroleum and chemical companies to pay to clean up of sites polluted by toxic waste. In similar fashion, the state climate laws are designed to force major fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on their past greenhouse gas emissions. Several other Democratic-controlled states, including New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and California, are considering similar measures. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and natural gas industries, applauded Trump's order that it said would 'protect American energy from so-called 'climate superfunds.'' 'Directing the Department of Justice to address this state overreach will help restore the rule of law and ensure activist-driven campaigns do not stand in the way of ensuring the nation has access to an affordable and reliable energy supply,' it said. Court battles are already ongoing The American Petroleum Institute, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed the lawsuit against Vermont. The lawsuit against New York was filed by West Virginia, along with several coal, gas and oil interests and 21 other mostly Republican-led states, including Texas, Ohio and Georgia. Advertisement Make Polluters Pay, a coalition of consumer and anti-fossil fuel groups, vowed to fight Trump's order and accused fossil fuel billionaires of convincing Trump to launch an assault on states. The order, it said, demonstrates the 'corporate capture of government' and 'weaponizes the Justice Department against states that dare to make polluters pay for climate damage.' Separately, the Department of Justice could join lawsuits in defense of fossil fuel industries being sued, Gerrard said. Those lawsuits include ones filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and dozens of cities and states seeking billions of dollars in damages from things like wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms. In the last three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a couple climate-themed lawsuits. One was brought by oil and gas companies asking it to block Honolulu's lawsuit. Another was brought by Alabama and Republican attorneys general in 18 other states aimed at blocking lawsuits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states, including California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Trump's order set off talk in state Capitols around the U.S. That includes Pennsylvania, where the governor is contesting a court challenge to a regulation that would make it the first major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners pay for greenhouse gas emissions. John Quigley, a former Pennsylvania environmental protection secretary and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, wondered if the Department of Justice would begin challenging all sorts of state water and air pollution laws. 'This kind of an order knows no bounds,' Quigley said. 'It's hard to say where this could end up.' Advertisement Associated Press reporter Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Want to avoid costly environmental regulations? Just email the EPA.
In its latest move to dismantle environmental regulation under the Trump Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it would speed up the process by which industry can bypass provisions of the Clean Air Act and other rules designed to limit air pollution with a simple offer: email us for a presidential exemption. Businesses that would like to avoid complying with certain EPA rules can email the agency with a reason justifying why it should be allowed an exemption and how it is in the best interest of the national security of the United States. According to the EPA website, all emails do not entitle the submitter to an exemption, but the president "will make a decision" based on the merits of the request. The EPA said in a statement to CBS News that section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act "specifically states that the President may exempt any stationary source 'if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.'" But many in the environmental sector were stunned by the proposal. "This section of the Clean Air Act is designed to protect people from exposure to the most toxic chemicals -- the ones that are dangerous in the smallest concentrations," environmental law expert Michael Gerrard said in an email. "It's shocking that EPA is now providing industries with a simple form they can use to get out of these rules and keep on emitting these harmful substances." For years, heavy industry has abided by rules and regulations set by the EPA to comply with the Clean Air Act, which has often led companies to invest heavily in expensive technology to reduce toxic air emissions, an expense critics have often derided as onerous. So, on March 12, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the "greatest day of deregulation" and said the agency was reviewing 31 rules that, he claims, amount to "trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes." The mission of the rollback is to reduce costly regulations that burden the industry. By reviewing the rules, Zeldin said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that "As we unleash American energy, revitalize domestic manufacturing, cut costs for families, and restore the rule of law, we do so with the firm belief that America's greatest days lie ahead." The rollbacks were cheered by Republican leaders and industry alike, "The action taken by the Trump EPA today is exactly what needs to be done to secure American energy dominance and restore the communities who have been negatively impacted by regulations and overreach from the Biden administration," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in a statement. Capito is also the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA. It could take years for the agency to finalize new rules to reduce the costs of environmental compliance, let alone the legal challenges it will face. In an attempt to fast-track this process, the EPA is offering this unique "hall pass," as some describe the presidential exemption, to enable companies to stop complying now, rather than years later when the updated rules are complete. "Under Administrator Zeldin, the EPA is now the Environmental Polluter Agency. His invitation for companies to put arsenic and mercury into the air if they claim it enhances 'national security' is a vast abuse of the President's given authority," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement to CBS News. Merkley also sits on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and its first priority is to review legislation on air pollution. Merkley's fellow committee member, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), had similar concerns, "Trump and his puppets at EPA are giving the most toxic polluters carte blanche to poison our air," he said in an email to CBS News. " As corrupt as this is, no one can have any confidence that either the technology or national security standards will be met." Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Science Committee, said in a statement, "The idea that some obscure, rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act empowers EPA to grant sweeping exemptions to polluting companies because they send an email is preposterous. It's clearly illegal - no doubt there." Environmental law experts believe the policy will be challenged in court. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Mary Nichols, a distinguished counsel for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law School. Nichols says because the statute is so broad, it is subject to abuse. "I think the likely first lawsuit is a blanket challenge to the entire procedure," she said. CBS News asked the EPA if it could explain how all the emails will be processed and assessed, whether each one will be individually considered by President Trump, and how many emails the agency has already received, but the EPA did not address those questions. But sending the email request to the EPA does create a paper trail that companies may want to consider. "This is something that we will fight to make public," said Joe Bonfiglio, executive director of the U.S. region of the Environmental Defense Fund, a prominent environmental nonprofit. "For companies who take advantage of this hall pass, there are organizations like ours who will make sure communities around those facilities know about the requests." Companies have until March 31 to email the EPA with the required information for the president to consider. Hegseth reacts to Atlantic releasing his Signal texts to Trump team detailing Yemen bombing Hegseth doubles down on Signal chat texts not being "war plans" Former National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster reacts to Trump administration leak
CBS News
28-03-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Want to avoid costly environmental regulations? Just email the EPA.
In its latest move to dismantle environmental regulation under the Trump Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it would speed up the process by which industry can bypass provisions of the Clean Air Act and other rules designed to limit air pollution with a simple offer: email us for a presidential exemption. Businesses that would like to avoid complying with certain EPA rules can email the agency with a reason justifying why it should be allowed an exemption and how it is in the best interest of the national security of the United States. According to the EPA website, all emails do not entitle the submitter to an exemption, but the president "will make a decision" based on the merits of the request. The EPA said in a statement to CBS News that section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act "specifically states that the President may exempt any stationary source 'if the President determines that the technology to implement such standard is not available and that it is in the national security interests of the United States to do so.'" But many in the environmental sector were stunned by the proposal. "This section of the Clean Air Act is designed to protect people from exposure to the most toxic chemicals -- the ones that are dangerous in the smallest concentrations," environmental law expert Michael Gerrard said in an email. "It's shocking that EPA is now providing industries with a simple form they can use to get out of these rules and keep on emitting these harmful substances." For years, heavy industry has abided by rules and regulations set by the EPA to comply with the Clean Air Act , which has often led companies to invest heavily in expensive technology to reduce toxic air emissions, an expense critics have often derided as onerous. So, on March 12, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the "greatest day of deregulation" and said the agency was reviewing 31 rules that, he claims, amount to "trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and hidden taxes." The mission of the rollback is to reduce costly regulations that burden the industry. By reviewing the rules, Zeldin said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that "As we unleash American energy, revitalize domestic manufacturing, cut costs for families, and restore the rule of law, we do so with the firm belief that America's greatest days lie ahead." The rollbacks were cheered by Republican leaders and industry alike , "The action taken by the Trump EPA today is exactly what needs to be done to secure American energy dominance and restore the communities who have been negatively impacted by regulations and overreach from the Biden administration," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in a statement. Capito is also the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the EPA. It could take years for the agency to finalize new rules to reduce the costs of environmental compliance, let alone the legal challenges it will face. In an attempt to fast-track this process, the EPA is offering this unique "hall pass," as some describe the presidential exemption, to enable companies to stop complying now, rather than years later when the updated rules are complete. "Under Administrator Zeldin, the EPA is now the Environmental Polluter Agency. His invitation for companies to put arsenic and mercury into the air if they claim it enhances 'national security' is a vast abuse of the President's given authority," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement to CBS News. Merkley also sits on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works and its first priority is to review legislation on air pollution. Merkley's fellow committee member, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), had similar concerns, "Trump and his puppets at EPA are giving the most toxic polluters carte blanche to poison our air," he said in an email to CBS News. " As corrupt as this is, no one can have any confidence that either the technology or national security standards will be met." Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Science Committee, said in a statement, "The idea that some obscure, rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act empowers EPA to grant sweeping exemptions to polluting companies because they send an email is preposterous. It's clearly illegal - no doubt there." Environmental law experts believe the policy will be challenged in court. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Mary Nichols, a distinguished counsel for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law School. Nichols says because the statute is so broad, it is subject to abuse. "I think the likely first lawsuit is a blanket challenge to the entire procedure," she said. CBS News asked the EPA if it could explain how all the emails will be processed and assessed, whether each one will be individually considered by President Trump, and how many emails the agency has already received, but the EPA did not address those questions. But sending the email request to the EPA does create a paper trail that companies may want to consider. "This is something that we will fight to make public," said Joe Bonfiglio, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, a prominent environmental nonprofit. "For companies who take advantage of this hall pass, there are organizations like ours who will make sure communities around those facilities know about the requests." Companies have until March 31 to email the EPA with the required information for the president to consider.
New York Times
10-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Supreme Court Rejects an Effort to Block States From Suing Oil Giants
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an argument that aimed to restrict states from suing oil companies for financial damage related to climate change. The argument was brought to the high court by 19 Republican attorneys general, representing states including Alabama and West Virginia, who were trying to prevent other states, led by Democrats, from pursuing lawsuits against the oil industry. Those states include California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Those Democratic-led states have sued major fossil fuel companies for allegedly deceiving the public for decades about the effects of their greenhouse gas emissions. The cases include a 2023 lawsuit filed by California's attorney general against five of the world's largest oil and gas companies, including BP and Exxon Mobil, and the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group that represents fossil fuel interests. 'This was never anything more than an attempt to run interference, help the defendants in our cases avoid accountability, and play politics with the Constitution,' said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in a statement. He filed his state's deception suit in 2020. Now, with the Supreme Court's official rejection, those cases can proceed. There are dozens of pending cases designed to force fossil fuel companies to pay monetary damages related to climate change, according to Michael Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. In January, the Supreme Court signaled it might not agree with the effort by Republican attorneys general to block lawsuits like these, when the justices denied an oil-industry request to review a Hawai'i Supreme Court decision that allows the state's climate deception lawsuit to go to trial. Supporters of the effort have argued that the state cases are unconstitutional and could affect interstate commerce. 'Each individual state cannot set its own priorities to which commercial activities it will encourage or discourage,' said Donald Kochan, a law professor for the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. For example, Mr. Kochan said, if one state wanted to encourage fossil-fuel production, its ability to do so could be affected if oil and gas prices rose because of the liability risk from the other states' lawsuits. Legal experts have called the Republican-led effort in the Supreme Court unusual because it took aim at state claims before they had been addressed by state courts. Mr. Gerrard said in an email that, because of this, it would have been 'surprising' for the nation's highest court to hear the arguments since it could open a Pandora's box for requests to prematurely end other kinds of litigation. 'The Supreme Court is saying it's not going to interfere,' he said, 'at least for now.' The lawsuits are separate from, but related to, a group of new climate 'superfund' laws that also aim to require polluters to account for the effect of their greenhouse gas emissions on their city, county, or state. They are called superfund laws because they are loosely modeled on the longstanding Superfund program to clean up toxic waste sites. The first climate superfund law went into effect in Vermont last summer, followed by New York's version in December. Both have faced legal challenges. A coalition of 22 states, led by West Virginia, sued New York for passing its law in February.
