Professors Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and Professor Richard Lazarus discuss the Supreme Court case West Virginia v. EPA. The Court's decision in this case will address the scope of EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, potentially impacting future EPA rules.

Transctipt: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Jody-and-Richard-WV-v-EPA-transcript_.pdf

CleanLaw Production Team: Robin Just, Andy Dolph, and Sara Levy

CleanLaw

67-Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions and West Virginia v. EPA, What's Next? Freeman and Lazarus

Carrie Jenks, our executive director, speaks with Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, and Dan Zimmerle, the director of the Methane Emissions Program at Colorado State University. They discuss EPA's recently released supplemental proposal to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector, and how the regulatory framework EPA has proposed is designed to enable the use of advanced technologies to better detect and therefore reduce emissions. You can read more about EPA's proposed rule in our white paper EPA’s Supplemental Methane Proposal—A Comprehensive Regulatory Framework to Encourage Use of Advanced Technologies and Significantly Reduce Methane Emissions. https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/epa-supplemental-methane-proposal/

Here's the link to a transcript of this episode https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Transcript-Carrie-Dan-and-Kyle.pdf

Ep 75—EPA’s Methane Regulations with Carrie Jenks, Kyle Danish, and Dan Zimmerle

In our first CleanLaw Quick Take*, our Executive Director Carrie Jenks and Staff Attorney Hannah Perls walk through the latest updates on the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

Hannah explains how the US Army Corps of Engineers' announcement about its upcoming draft environmental impact statement might affect the future of the pipeline, and how litigation between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Army Corps got us to this point. 

Carrie and Hannah also review the Tribe's concerns in that litigation, what will happen after the draft environmental impact statement is released, and how other federal actions might affect what's in the Army Corps' draft. 

You can stay updated on the Dakota Access Pipeline on our Regulatory Tracker Page. http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2018/09/dakota-access-pipeline/ 

Here is a transcript of this episode http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Transcript-77-DAPL-QT-with-Hannah-and-Carrie.pdf 

*CleanLaw Quick Takes are mini episodes where our staff break down a current topic in environmental or energy law in ten minutes or less. These episodes are designed for general audiences as well as practitioners.

Ep 77—Quick Take: The Dakota Access Pipeline with Hannah Perls and Carrie Jenks

Harvard Law Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Chet France, a former senior executive at EPA who oversaw the first national greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks in US history. Jody and Chet analyze EPA's most recent proposal to update greenhouse gas emission standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles and discuss how the implementation of those standards might be impacted by subsidies and incentives in the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act and future litigation.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CleanLaw-81-Journey-to-the-electrification-of-the-transportation-sector.pdf

Mentioned links:
Episode 65, Clean Car Rules with Jody Freeman and Chet France https://soundcloud.com/user-995691545/65clean-car-rules-with-jody-freeman-and-chet-france?si=db9f227fa1424e34a1a30e322212c7e1&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

EDF Joins Dozens of Other Leaders to Defend EPA’s Clean Car Standards in Court: https://www.edf.org/media/edf-joins-dozens-other-leaders-defend-epas-clean-car-standards-court

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CleanLaw-81-Journey-to-the-electrification-of-the-transportation-sector.pdf

Ep 81: Journey to the Electrification of the Transportation Sector w/Jody Freeman and Chet France

EELP senior staff attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Dr. Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Sean Hecht, who is the managing attorney of Earth Justice's California Regional Office. 

They discuss the past, present, and future of disaster insurance, including the role that governments can play in helping design insurance markets that not only redistribute climate related risk, but can help mitigate that risk in an effective and equitable way. Carolyn and Sean are just speaking for themselves and not on behalf of their current or former organizations.

Transcript available here: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Transcript-82-Disaster-Insurance-Past-Present-and-Future-with-Hannah-Perls-Carolyn-Kousky-Sean-Hecht.pdf

Mentioned links:

Carolyn Kousky, Understanding Disaster Insurance: New Tools for a More Resilient Future (2022): https://islandpress.org/books/understanding-disaster-insurance

Sean Hecht, Climate Change and the Transformation of Risk: Insurance Matters, 55 UCLA L. Rev. 1559 (2008): https://www.uclalawreview.org/pdf/55-6-3.pdf

Carolyn’s testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/reauthorization-of-the-national-flood-insurance-program-improving-community-resilience

The California Insurance Commission’s Sustainable Insurance Roadmap: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/180-climate-change/The-Sustainable-Insurance-Roadmap.cfm

Ep 82: Equitable Disaster Insurance & Climate Change w/Hannah Perls, Carolyn Kousky, & Sean Hecht

EELP’s Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, and EELP's executive director, Carrie Jenks speak again with Jay Duffy, litigation director at Clean Air Task Force, and Kevin Poloncarz, a partner at the law firm Covington and Burling. 

Jody, Jay, and Kevin recently joined CleanLaw to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision about the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, and now, with Carrie, talk about EPA's recently proposed greenhouse gas regulation for the power sector and their views on how EPA's approaches were shaped by both the Supreme Court’s decision, West Virginia v. EPA, and Congress’s enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Transcript available here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Transcript-83-Power-Sector-Rule-Jody-Jay-Kevin-Carrie-J.pdf

Ep 83: EPA's Proposed Power Sector Rules w/ Jody Freeman, Jay Duffy, Kevin Poloncarz, Carrie Jenks

Harvard Law School Professor and EELP's Founding Director Jody Freeman, who is also an independent director of ConocoPhillips, speaks with Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus and University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Law Steph Tai about the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sackett v. EPA.

They discuss how the Court’s reliance on a dictionary definition of waters will drastically limit Clean Water Act protections: severely shrinking what qualifies as covered wetlands and streams, and as a result, enfeebling the federal government’s ability to protect the larger water bodies the act still clearly covers. With a deep dive into the history of the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court’s prior decisions, and the science of watersheds, they put into context how the Sackett decision flies in the face of what Congress intended when it passed this landmark legislation.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CleanLaw-86-final.pdf

Quotes:

“[I]f the Court uses a continuous surface water connection test, which is what they're moving towards, to traditional navigable waters required for wetlands, more than 50% of wetlands in some watersheds would no longer be protected by the Clean Water Act. With respect to streams: Ephemeral and intermittent streams would not be jurisdictional waters and thus more than 90% of stream length, in some watersheds, would no longer be protected by the Clean Water Act.” —Steph Tai [6:50]

“… [W]e don't have to guess what the purpose of the Clean Water Act is, it's the very first section of the act, section 101, it says its purpose is to preserve the biological, physical, and chemical integrity of the nation's waters. That is the purpose of the statute. And unfortunately, what the court is done here, it's made it impossible to do that both to those waters that are now no longer covered themselves, which are important, and because their connection to the waters the court says are covered. So all sets of those waters will no longer be effectively protected by the statute. And when Congress did this in 1972, they did it deliberately. They deliberately decided we needed a national law, a comprehensive law. They deliberately defined the term navigable waters to mean waters of the United States as a broad term, and the accompanying legislative history said, we're doing that deliberately. We want to tap into the full scope of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. So, they were intentionally not making this depend on traditional notions of navigability. And that's been the sort of the settled law. And now the court has turned back the clock.” —Richard Lazarus [13:45]

“I felt a sense of disappointment there wasn't a dissent that really took the majority to task and chimed in about the danger of the Thomas-Gorsuch approach and view of the Commerce Clause... [L]urking here in the Thomas-Gorsuch concurrence is a very radical view of the Commerce Clause and what Congress can do and what it means for environmental law more generally.”  —Jody Freeman [42:50]

“There is a real tone and tenor and attitude of real disdain for the enterprise of the agencies in these cases. For the job the government has been given by Congress in these statutes, a sense of the government is the enemy. The government imposes and impinges on liberty. There's a line in the Alito opinion, Richard, that says the Clean Water Act is a ‘potent weapon’ and it has ‘crushing’ consequences. Not, ‘there's a mission.’ Congress gave the agency a mission to protect the waters of the United States.” —Jody Freeman [55:08]

Ep. 86: Sackett v. EPA Decision — What the Justices Said and What this Means for Water

Ari Peskoe, director of our Electricity Law Initiative, speaks with Staff Attorney Hannah Dobie about Ari’s new article about power sector governance, Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate’s Control. They discuss how FERC’s legal authority shapes regional governance, how independent decisionmaking by Regional Transmission Organizations is compromised by utilities and other incumbent firms, and why this is holding back the industry’s innovative potential. 

Transcript available here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CleanLaw-90-transcript-RTO.pdf

Ari's paper is here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/replacing-the-utility-transmission-syndicates-control/

Show notes with graphic mentioned at 23:15 https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/cleanlaw-replacing-the-utility-transmission-syndicates-control-hannah-dobie-interviews-ari-peskoe-about-his-new-article-in-energy-law-journal/

Ep 90—Replacing the Utility Transmission Syndicate’s Control, Ari Peskoe & Hannah Dobie

The Endangered Species Act, which turned 50 years old on December 28, 2023, has been described as one of the most potent environmental law statutes ever enacted. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, discuss the initial bipartisan support for the act, the Supreme Court cases that shaped its implementation, and the success of the law in protecting numerous species. They also talk about how the Endangered Species Act could be improved and the risks that it may face in the future.

Transcript (PDF): https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CleanLaw-EP92.pdf

Ep 92 — The Endangered Species Act at 50: Potent Statute, Risky Future

Ari Peskoe, director of our Electricity Law Initiative, speaks with Claire Wayner, senior associate at RMI's Carbon-Free Electricity program, and Casey Baker senior program manager at GridLab. They discuss how the utility industry thinks about building new high-voltage transmission lines and how FERC Order No. 1920 attempts to push the industry to develop more transmission to accommodate new, clean sources of electricity while maintaining a reliable and affordable power system.

Transcript (pdf): https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CleanLaw_EP94.pdf

Ep 94—FERC’s New Approach to Improving Transmission Investment, Order No. 1920

California has had a pivotal role in creating US clean car and clean air regulations under multiple administrations. In this episode, EELP Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor, Jody Freeman, speaks with Mary Nichols, former Chair of the California Air Resources Board and California's Secretary for Natural Resources, as well as former Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. They discuss California's role in driving car and air emissions regulation, how automakers and market forces have evolved since the 1970s, and what may happen in the coming years under either election outcome.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Jody-and-Mary-episode-95.pdf

Ep 95—The Road to Clean Cars and Clean Air: California's Pivotal Role

In this episode, EELP Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Andy Mergen, faculty director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School and former chief of the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Jody and Andy break down what they call the “Quagmire Quartet” of recent Supreme Court decisions that overturn the Chevron doctrine and undermine administrative agencies. They discuss the new challenges that federal agencies will face as they work to protect the public, the ways in which the Supreme Court has centralized power in the judiciary, how courts can continue to uphold important federal rules, and why they have hope.

Transcript available at https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CleanLaw_EP96-transcript.pdf

Ep 96—Suite of Supreme Court Decisions Undermine Administrative Law

EELP senior staff attorney Sara Dewey speaks with Andy Mergen, Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School and former chief of the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Andy and Sara discuss the origin and evolution of presidential authority to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act, how Congress and the courts have responded to these designations over the act’s 118-year history, present day legal challenges to the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, and what could be ahead for monuments in the Supreme Court.

Transcript here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CleanLaw_EP97-final.pdf

Monumental Decisions: The Antiquities Act and Presidential Authority

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Olatunde Johnson, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Professor Johnson and Hannah discuss the history and evolution of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a crucial legal tool for the environmental justice movement. Earlier this year, a federal judge blocked EPA and the Department of Justice from enforcing their Title VI rules prohibiting actions that disparately impact communities of color in the state of Louisiana, and now those rules are at risk of being struck down nationwide.  

This is the first episode in a 2-part series on Title VI.

Transcript at https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CleanLaw_EP98.pdf 

Links mentioned in show:

Louisiana v EPA - https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024.08.22-cain-judgement.pdf

Our podcast on the "Quagmire Quartet" Suite of Supreme Court Decisions Undermine Administrative Law -https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/cleanlaw-suite-of-supreme-court-decisions-undermine-administrative-law/ 

Petition for Rulemaking on Title VI from Republican-led Attorneys General - https://www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/default/files/2024-04/epa-title-vi-comment-final.pdf 

Response to Petition for Rulemaking from Environmental Justice and Civil Rights Groups - https://www.nclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024.09.04_Letter_Title-VI-Response-cover-letter-executive-summary-response-letter.pdf 

Democratic AGs’ Response to the Petition for Rulemaking - https://stateimpactcenter.org/files/AG_Actions_NY_Response_FL_Rulemaking_Petition_9.5.24.pdf 

Olatunde C. Johnson, Lawyering That Has No Name: Title VI and the Meaning of Private Enforcement, 66 Stan. L. Rev. 1293 (2014). - https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1094/

Ep 98—60 Years of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Part 1: LA v EPA

EELP senior staff attorney Hannah Perls speaks with speaks with Debbie Chizewer and Nick Leonard about environmental justice lawyering, including leveraging Title VI of the Civil Rights Act on behalf of frontline communities. Debbie Chizewer is a managing attorney with Earthjustice based in Chicago, where she leads the organization's Midwest litigation strategy. Nick Leonard is the executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center based in Detroit, which provides legal representation to communities across Michigan. 

This is the second episode in a 2-part series on Title VI.

Transcript at https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/CleanLaw_EP99.pdf

Links mentioned in episode: 

Episode I in this series https://soundcloud.com/user-995691545/ep-9860-years-of-title-vi-of-the-civil-rights-act-part-1-la-v-epa 

Great Lakes Environmental Law Center https://glelc.org/

Earthjustice Midwest Office https://earthjustice.org/office/midwest

CARE v. EPA, No. 4:15-03292-SBA (N.D. Cal.) https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/114.20order20032030202018.pdf 

US Ecology Agreement between Michigan EGLE and Complainants https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/title-vi-use-north-2024-08-29-title-vi-complaint-agreement-complaint-no-20-001-d-use-north-final_.pdf 



Ep 99—Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Part II: Environmental Justice Lawyering in Practice

EELP founding director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and Carrie Jenks, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program. They discuss the Trump administration’s actions to date on climate, energy, environment, and natural resources and break down which actions have an immediate effect, what will take time, and what they will be watching for, including actions affecting the federal workforce. They also discuss why the practice and study of law matter now more than ever.

Transcript at https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CleanLaw_EP100-Transcript.pdf

Our analysis of the Trump administration's initial executive orders https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/trumps-environmental-and-energy-executive-orders-initial-insights-and-what-were-watching/

Our rollback resources https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/topic/rollback-resources/

Our Regulatory Tracker https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker-type/regulatory-tracker/

Our Federal Environmental Justice Tracker https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker-type/environmental-justice-tracker/

Ep 100—Trump’s Bold Reversal on Energy and Climate Policy: ‘It’s a Lot’

Electricity Law Initiative Director Ari Peskoe and EELP Fellow Eliza Martin discuss their new paper, Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers are Paying for Big Tech Power. As Amazon, Google, Meta, and other technology companies try to secure electricity for their new data centers, electric utilities are expanding their systems to serve them. Because utility companies profit by building infrastructure, serving data centers is a lucrative opportunity that is incentivizing utilities to offer attractive rates to Big Tech companies. Ari and Eliza discuss how rate-setting processes can shift utility costs among ratepayers and explain how rate structures, as well as contracts between utilities and data centers, could be transferring Big Tech’s energy costs to the public.

Transcript https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CleanLaw_EP101-Transcript.pdf 

Read the paper https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/extracting-profits-from-the-public-how-utility-ratepayers-are-paying-for-big-techs-power/

Ep 101—Who Will Pay for Data Centers’ Massive Power Bills? It’s Probably You.

In this episode, EELP founding director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Carrie Jenks, EELP's executive director and Ari Peskoe, director of EELP's Electricity Law Initiative. They discuss President Trump's most recent executive orders on climate, energy, and the environment and what they are watching for as agencies begin to implement the administration’s directives to roll back environmental regulations; challenge state energy and climate policies, and revitalize the coal industry.

Transcript available here: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/CleanLaw_EP102-Transcript.pdf

Ep102—Unpacking the White House’s Legal Strategy for Attacking Environmental Protection

EELP Senior Staff Attorney Hannah Perls speaks with the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Andrea Joy Campbell, and Vernice Miller-Travis, Executive Vice President and Environmental Justice Lead at the Metropolitan Group. They discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle federal environmental justice and equity programs, funding, and priorities, and what those changes mean for critical infrastructure, toxics-free housing, access to clean air and clean water, and more. They also discuss what states and community-based organizations are doing in this moment to safeguard public health and environmental protections in Massachusetts and nationwide.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CleanLaw_EP103-Transcript.pdf

Links:

Multi-State Guidance Concerning Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Employment Initiatives, from 16 state attorneys general, Feb. 13, 2025 https://www.mass.gov/doc/multi-state-guidance-concerning-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-employment-initiatives/download 

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, a report from the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice, 1987 https://www.ucc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ToxicWastesRace.pdf

Searchable map of facilities invited by EPA to apply for presidential exemptions from air pollution limits, compiled by EDF, April 30, 2025 https://www.edf.org/maps/epa-pollution-pass/

EP103—The Future of Environmental Justice with MA AG Andrea Campbell and Vernice Miller-Travis

EELP attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Professor Andrew Mergen, faculty director of Harvard’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about the latest updates to the National Environmental Policy Act, including new agency implementing procedures, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Eagle County, and amendments included in the One Big Beautiful Bill recently passed by Congress. They talk about what these changes mean in practice for project developers, impacted communities, and the environment.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CleanLaw_EP104-Transcript.pdf

Links:
NEPA overview https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/nepa-overview/ 
NEPA Regulatory Tracker page https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker/nepa-environmental-review-requirements/
NEPA after Eagle County decision https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/the-future-of-nepa-and-federal-permitting-after-eagle-county/
CEQ's template and agencies' procedures https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/decoding-agencies-new-nepa-procedures/
"Energy emergency" declaration https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/the-trump-administrations-aggressive-anti-regulatory-pro-fossil-fuel-directives/ 

EP104—Breaking Down Recent Changes to NEPA from Agencies, Congress, and the Courts

In the first of this two-part series, EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under President Obama and the White House National Climate Advisor under President Biden. They discuss Gina's time at EPA, including the agency's mission to safeguard public health and the environment through actions that rely on robust science, technology, data, and policymaking expertise. They also review current actions by the Trump administration and discuss how private and nonprofit stakeholders and federal and state policymakers can work together to make progress on climate change and other environmental justice and public health issues.

Transcript (PDF): https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CleanLaw_EP105-Transcript.pdf

EP105—Bipartisan Reflections on EPA’s Past, Present, and Future (Part I)

In the second of this two-part series, EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with William Reilly, EPA Administrator under President George H.W. Bush, and Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under President George W. Bush. They discuss their time at EPA including efforts to simultaneously advance environmental protections and economic growth. They also discussed the consequences of current changes to the agency under the Trump administration, including the loss of scientific expertise, and they highlight current career opportunities for people dedicated to public service.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CleanLaw_EP106-Transcript.pdf 

EP106—Bipartisan Reflections on EPA’s Past, Present, and Future (Part II)

In this special crossover episode of CleanLaw and Shift Key, Heatmap's weekly podcast on decarbonization and the shift away from fossil fuels, EELP’s Founding Director Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Shift Key hosts Robinson Meyer, the Founding Executive Editor of Heatmap News, and Jesse Jenkins, Professor of Energy Systems Engineering at Princeton University. 

They discuss the Trump administration's proposed finding that that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants and the potential for EPA to soon surrender its ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories. They also talk about whether Trump gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. 

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CleanLaw_EP107-Transcript.pdf

Ep107—Trump's Move to Kill the Clean Air Act's Climate Authority, Forever

EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor, Jody Freeman, speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Solomon Hsiang, Professor of Global Environmental Policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. They speak about EPA's recent proposal to repeal the agency's 2009 Endangerment Finding, and dig into the legal and scientific arguments offered by EPA. They discuss whether the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA already answers some of these legal questions and the state of the science on climate change: what we knew in 2009 when EPA first made its Endangerment Finding, and how our understanding has continued to improve.

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CleanLaw_EP108-Transcript.pdf

eelp.law.harvard.edu

Ep108—What Science and the Law Say about EPA’s Authority to Regulate GHGs

EELP's Hannah Perls speaks with environmental justice pioneer Charles Lee, former director of EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and principal author of the landmark 1987 report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, and now a visiting scholar at Howard University School of Law, and Sean Moriarty, former deputy commissioner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. They discuss the growing field of cumulative impacts analysis and how states are increasingly using this tool in permitting and other programs to advance meaningful protections for overburdened communities across the country. 

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/CleanLaw_EP109-Transcript.pdf 

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: https://www.ucc.org/what-we-do/justice-local-church-ministries/efam/environmental-justice/environmental-ministries_toxic-waste-20/ 

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Environmental Justice Archives: https://dep.nj.gov/ej/archive/#meeting-20210624 

EELP's EJ Tracker page on EPA's cumulative impacts efforts: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker/epa-released-interim-framework-for-advancing-consideration-of-cumulative-impacts/ 

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment report: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/state-of-the-science-and-the-future-of-cumulative-impact-assessment 

The New School Tishman Environment and Design Center's Cumulative Impacts Dashboard map of EJ laws: https://www.tishmancenter.org/cumulativeimpacts 

EP109—Cumulative Impacts and the ‘Holy Grail’ of EJ Policy

What does it take to electrify a cold-weather state? Maine is leading the nation in home electrification, with more than 150,000 heat pumps installed and counting. Efficiency Maine Trust executive director Michael Stoddard joins EELP’s Abby Husselbee to talk about how Maine’s independent approach, simple program design, and partnership with small businesses are transforming home heating and cutting emissions.

EP110—How Maine Became a Heat Pump Leader

EELP director of State and Regional Climate Policies Dale Bryk talks with Jamie Van Nostrand, recent chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, the entity that oversees investor-owned electric and gas utilities. Together, they dive into the regulatory frameworks that govern utilities, how those rules drive utility investments, and what that means for consumer energy bills in the transition to clean energy.   

Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CleanLaw-EP111-Transcript.pdf 

EP111—Behind the Curtain of the Clean Utility Transition

Joe Goffman speaks with Kathy Fallon Lambert of the Harvard School of Public Health about her recent studies, with a team of many other scientists, that highlight overlooked potential public health impacts of EPA’s proposed changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and the Clean Power Plan/Affordable Clean Energy Rule (if you want to go straight to the CPP/ACE discussion go to 27:15). 

Links to the mentioned studies here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/kathy-fallon-lambert-and-joe-goffman-discuss-mats-and-ace/

Transcript available here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fallon-Lambert-and-Goffman-scrpt.pdf

State of Guanabara, Ultramagnetic Remix

Episode 13: Joe Goffman & Kathy Fallon Lambert on MATS/CPP/ACE and Public Health

Hana Vizcarra speaks with Erik Landry, SM ’18 and research associate in the MIT Office of the Vice President for Research. They talk about energy companies’ use of scenarios in climate-related financial disclosure and discuss his new white paper.

"In 2017, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), established by the G20 Financial Stability Board, provided a guiding framework and set of recommendations to promote that kind of consistency. However, the use of scenario analysis to describe the resilience of a company’s strategy, as recommended by the TCFD, still represents a significant challenge for companies. MIT, with its extensive experience in analysis of climate futures, saw this as an opportunity to shed some light on the task." Download the full MIT Report, Climate-Related Financial Disclosures: The Use of Scenarios, here http://news.mit.edu/2019/climate-financial-disclosures-1106 

For a full transcript of this conversation please click here http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/Hana-and-Erik-Landry-Transcription-for-Website.pdf

Our website is here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu

State of Guanabara (Ultramagnetic Remix)

Episode 31: Corporate Climate Scenarios and Strategic Resilience with Hana Vizcarra and Erik Landry

In this episode Alex Griswold, a research associate at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, interviews Professor Jody Freeman, our founding director and also an independent director of ConocoPhillips. They talk about the Trump-era environmental rollbacks that are most troubling to Jody, and why she is still optimistic that we can do better. 

Transcript https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/CleanLaw-40-Jody-Alex-rollbacks-and-optimism_.pdf

Episode 40: Jody Freeman and Alex Griswold on Trump Environmental Rollbacks and Optimism

The Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program influences policy discussions about environmental, climate, and energy issues. EELP offers robust legal analysis and practical governance solutions that will move these discussions forward.

CleanLaw: Harvard Environmental & Energy Law

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