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Full-Text Articles in Law
Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases And Other Air Pollutants In The First Obama Administration And Major Air Issues For The Second Term, Patricia Mccubbin
Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases And Other Air Pollutants In The First Obama Administration And Major Air Issues For The Second Term, Patricia Mccubbin
Patricia Ross McCubbin
President Barack Obama has made addressing climate change the centerpiece of his environmental policy. Most recently, on June 25, 2013, the President gave a groundbreaking speech detailing the steps his administration will take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout the United States. Of great controversy, the President directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit emissions of greenhouse gases from both new and existing power plants, which represent 40% of total U.S. carbon emissions. The President’s call to action – in his June 2013 speech and throughout his first term – stands in stark contrast to Congress’s inability to …
Cap And Trade Programs Under The Clean Air Act: Lessons From The Clean Air Interstate Rule And The Nox Sip Call, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Cap And Trade Programs Under The Clean Air Act: Lessons From The Clean Air Interstate Rule And The Nox Sip Call, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Patricia Ross McCubbin
The Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), adopted in 2005, was well recognized as the most important rule to improve air quality adopted by the Bush Administration. To alleviate high levels of smog and soot east of the Mississippi, the rule capped harmful emissions in 28 states, but allowed regulated facilities to participate in an emissions trading program. Such cap and trade programs have become a favored tool for EPA and many other parties because they allow industries to meet environmental goals cost-effectively. CAIR received widespread support from many quarters. States and environmental organizations viewed the rule as a good step …
The Risk In Technology-Based Standards, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
The Risk In Technology-Based Standards, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Patricia Ross McCubbin
This article challenges the conventional belief that EPA establishes technology-based standards under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act simply by considering the costs of available pollution control technologies without also considering how those technologies will reduce the risks posed by harmful pollutants and benefit the public health. Instead, the author argues that, from a purely theoretical standpoint, EPA must weigh both the costs and what the author terms the “risk reduction benefits” when it sets technology-based standards – not in any formal cost-benefit analysis, but in a very rough sense. In addition, relying on an extensive review of …
Amending The Clean Air Act To Establish Democratic Legitimacy For The Residual Risk Program, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Amending The Clean Air Act To Establish Democratic Legitimacy For The Residual Risk Program, Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Patricia Ross McCubbin
This article analyzes the flawed assumptions underlying the regulation of hazardous air pollutants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. By tracing the legislative history and regulatory evolution of the Residual Risk Program under that provision, the article argues that Congress and the judiciary have developed an incorrect presumption that EPA can determine “safe” emission levels of hazardous air pollutants without considering the cost and feasibility of regulation (an argument that also has implications for EPA’s process of setting national ambient air quality standards). The article demonstrates that EPA has avoided the illogical results of that presumption by considering …
Michigan V. Epa: Interstate Ozone Pollution And Epa's "Nox Sip Call", Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Michigan V. Epa: Interstate Ozone Pollution And Epa's "Nox Sip Call", Patricia Ross Mccubbin
Patricia Ross McCubbin
This article addresses one of the most important rules written by EPA under the Clinton Administration to implement the federal Clean Air Act--EPA’s highly controversial demand that twenty-three states reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides to help alleviate ozone pollution in downwind states. That rule, the so-called “NOx SIP Call,” was upheld in all major respects by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Michigan v. EPA. As this article explains, the court’s decision established important principles for future interstate air pollution disputes, including the ongoing litigation about EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). In particular, the article …