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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Elephant In The Room Or The Elephant In The Mousehole? The Legal Risks (And Promise) Of Climate Policy Under §115 Of The Clean Air Act, Nathan Richardson
The Elephant In The Room Or The Elephant In The Mousehole? The Legal Risks (And Promise) Of Climate Policy Under §115 Of The Clean Air Act, Nathan Richardson
Faculty Publications
Climate policy in the United States is near an inflection point. With Congress uninterested in new legislation, focus at the federal level for most of the last decade has been on the Clean Air Act, but whether regulation under that old statute can successfully address carbon emissions remains unclear. Under President Obama, the EPA has focused on two core programs-vehicle emissions standards and the Clean Power Plan, aimed at fossil fuel power plants. But with the latter of these programs under legal challenge, and both falling short of the flexible, economy-wide policy many believe is necessay, academic and policy attention …
Playing Without Aces: Offset And The Limits Of Flexibility Under Clean Air Act Climate Policy, Nathan D. Richardson
Playing Without Aces: Offset And The Limits Of Flexibility Under Clean Air Act Climate Policy, Nathan D. Richardson
Faculty Publications
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to move ahead with regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Previous work has indicated that basic forms of compliance flexibility—trading—appear to be legally permissible under section III of the CAA. This Article takes a close look at more expansive and ambitious types of flexibility: trading between different kinds of sources, biomass co-firing, and above all, offsets. It concludes that most types of such extended flexibility are either legally incompatible with the CAA, or so legally problematic that EPA is unlikely to adopt them. This has important implications …
Tradable Standards For Clean Air Act Carbon Policy, Nathan D. Richardson, Dallas Butraw, Arthur G. Fraas
Tradable Standards For Clean Air Act Carbon Policy, Nathan D. Richardson, Dallas Butraw, Arthur G. Fraas
Faculty Publications
EPA is in the process of regulating U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using its powers under the Clean Air Act. The likely next phase of this regulatory program is performance standards under Section 111 of the act for coal plants and petroleum refineries, which the agency has committed to finalize by the end of 2012. Section 111 appears to allow use of flexible, market-based regulatory tools. In this paper, we discuss one such tool, tradable standards. Tradable standards appear to be a legally and politically viable choice for the agency, and evidence suggests they are substantially more cost-effective than traditional …
International Greenhouse Gas Offsets Under The Clean Air Act, Nathan D. Richardson
International Greenhouse Gas Offsets Under The Clean Air Act, Nathan D. Richardson
Faculty Publications
Offsets, and in particular international offsets, have been advanced as an important tool in climate policy, capable of significantly reducing the costs of emissions reductions. As attention turns to the existing CAA as a potential vehicle for general reduction of GHG emissions, an important question is whether regulation under the statute is compatible with international offsets. Certain regulatory programs under the CAA are likely candidates for GHG regulation, but many of them are legally incompatible with international offsets. Those programs that might permit use of international offsets have other problems that make them unpopular choices for GHG regulation. To the …
Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under The Clean Air Act: Structure, Effects, And Implications Of A Knowable Pathway, Nathan D. Richardson, Arthur G. Fraas, Dallas Butraw
Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under The Clean Air Act: Structure, Effects, And Implications Of A Knowable Pathway, Nathan D. Richardson, Arthur G. Fraas, Dallas Butraw
Faculty Publications
It appears inevitable, absent legislative intervention, that regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) will move beyond mobile sources to the industrial and power facilities that emit most U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze the mechanisms available to the EPA for regulating such sources, and identify one, New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) as the most predictable, likely, and practical, i.e. knowable, pathway. Based on the legal structure of the NSPS and the EPA’s traditional approach, we analyze a hypothetical GHG NSPS for one sector, coal electricity generation. This analysis indicates that efficiency improvements and perhaps biomass cofiring could be …