Economy-Wide Cap-and-Trade Doubtful; Narrower Bill May Fare Better
Climate change policy experts speaking on the first day of the "Carbon Economy" summit in Washington, DC, sponsored by The Economist, expressed skepticism over the chances of passing an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill in 2010.
Continue Reading...Two Climate Takes On Warren Buffet & Burlington
It can happen from time to time that there are different viewpoints in a practice group. Here are two perspectives from attorneys on MLA’s climate team regarding Warren Buffet’s planned purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. The bloggers suggest what the financial guru’s $34 billion investment implies for coal and cap-and-trade legislation.
Continue Reading...OPIC and the Export-Import Bank After the NEPA Settlement: A Tale of Two Agencies
In early 2009 two US agencies, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), settled a longstanding climate change lawsuit in the 9th Circuit and pledged to reduce emissions in their lending portfolios while increasing support for clean energy. Their approaches to implementing the settlement agreement are taking starkly different paths: OPIC appears to have entered the “age of wisdom,” while Ex-Im remains in the “age of foolishness,” to borrow from Charles Dickens.
In 2002, the city of Boulder, Colorado and the California cities of Oakland, Santa Monica, and Arcata, along with members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, filed a groundbreaking climate change lawsuit (Friends of the Earth, Inc. et al v. Spenelli et al).
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