In November, the Environmental Law Institute will publish Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Michael B. Gerrard & John C. Dernbach eds.). The book is a playbook of state, local, federal, and private legal pathways for…
A small but growing number of lawyers identify themselves as doing sustainability work. In the Martindale-Hubbell online directory of lawyers, in which lawyers list their areas of practice, 759 U.S. lawyers identify sustainability or sustainable…
On December 19, 2013, in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held unconstitutional major parts of Pennsylvania’s Act 13—a 2012 oil and gas law designed to facilitate the development of natural gas…
The national debate about climate change has reached a crucial point. We have had eight years of modest progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The best known and most controversial part of that effort is the Clean Power Plan, which is…
Students at Widener Commonwealth Law School have created two-column comparison charts to enable you to quickly compare and contrast the positions of major party candidates on a range of sustainability and climate change issues. The chart for the…
Paris—In the run-up to the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention, a short humorous video, “Earth to Paris,” was widely viewed. It was a call to delegates for take serious action on climate change at the…
Paris—This is easily one of the most important conferences to the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in the 21 years these conferences have been held. The Convention is a treaty that now has 195 member countries. The…
Few energy issues in recent decades have proven as contentious as shale gas. The rapid recent development of shale gas in the United States has reduced gas prices, helped the U.S. economy recover from the recent recession, reduced U.S. dependence on…
The Environmental Law Center at Widener University School of Law has published an in-depth comparison of the Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidates’ positions on issues related to sustainability. The comparison is available here. The…
On December 19, 2013, in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held unconstitutional major parts of Pennsylvania’s “Act 13”—a 2012 oil and gas law designed to facilitate the development of natural…