Climate Litigation

CSPW’s New Climate Action Plan Oversight Series: Continuing Rick Piltz’s Work on the CAP

By Rebeka Ryvola When President Obama announced the Climate Action Plan (CAP) in June of 2013, it was a landmark moment. The first-of-its-kind plan aims at achieving comprehensive action on climate change by way of a three-fold goal: cutting domestic carbon pollution, adapting the US to irreversible climate change impacts, and leading the international community [...]

Michael Mann DC Appeals Court brief lays out defamation case and seeks to move toward trial

Superior Court of the District of Columbia In a brief filed today in the DC Court of Appeals as part of his defamation lawsuit against the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michael Mann once again argued his case and requested that the Court proceed to adjudicate the merits of Defendants’ appeal [...]

On climate change and not saving the wolverine

Photo: National Science Foundation The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to deny protection to the American wolverine as a threatened species appears to be another case of the administration setting politically inconvenient science aside. The decision overrides a scientifically based recommendation by the agency’s own wildlife biologists and peer-review panels [...]

Press groups file amici curiae brief in ‘Mann v. Steyn’ defamation lawsuit

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 26 other organizations filed an amici curiae brief on August 11 with the DC Court of Appeals in Michael Mann’s defamation lawsuit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Review (sometimes popularly referred to as ‘Mann v. Steyn’). Prof. Mann is scheduled to file an [...]

Pushing EPA to regulate aviation greenhouse gas emissions

Photo: International Civil Aviation Organization On August 5, two environmental groups sent notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failure to comply with a court order that would lead toward regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. aviation. EPA has long delayed taking any steps to apply its Endangerment Finding [...]

2018-10-26T13:12:53-04:00August 8th, 2014|Climate Change Mitigation, Climate Litigation|

What to do about the “Social Cost of Carbon” metric? — Part 2

The models used to calculate a Social Cost of Carbon for use in estimating the benefits of reducing carbon emissions fall far short of including a wide range of expected damages from global climate disruption. Using an SCC metric, or any cost-benefit approach, in making project-by-project decisions on U.S. government permits creates a bias in [...]

What to do about the “Social Cost of Carbon” metric? — Part 1

Is the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) metric a good tool for use in making government decisions related to climate change and fossil fuel development? The EPA uses it in economically justifying its rules on reducing carbon emissions from vehicles and power plants. A federal judge recently rejected a proposed coal mine expansion in Colorado [...]