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Incorporating Climate Change in NEPA Reviews: Recommendations for Reform
Get PDFThe National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) requires federal agencies to conduct an environmental review prior to moving ahead with any major federal project, plan, or program that could significantly affect the environment. As part of the environmental review, agencies must share information with, and solicit feedback from, the public. The goal is to improve federal decision-making by ensuring that agencies take a hard look at the environmental effects of their actions and fully inform the public about those effects.
In guidance issued in 2016, the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”)—the federal body charged with implementing NEPA—identified climate change as a relevant factor to be considered in NEPA reviews. Multiple federal courts have confirmed that, under NEPA, federal agencies must consider both proposed actions’ contributions to climate change (i.e., via greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions) and the effects of climate change on proposed actions and their environmental outcomes. Despite this, however, federal agencies have been slow to integrate climate change considerations into their NEPA reviews.
In October 2021, CEQ announced that it would undertake a two-phase review of NEPA’s implementing regulations and consider amendments to, among other things, “ensure that the NEPA process . . . meets environmental, climate change, and environmental justice objectives.” Phase 1 of the review was completed in April 2022, when CEQ finalized limited amendments to undo certain regulatory changes made by the Trump administration. CEQ is now embarking on Phase 2, which will involve more extensive regulatory revisions, aimed at ensuring “the NEPA process provides for efficient and effective environmental reviews that are guided by science and are consistent with the statute’s text and purpose” and promote improved federal decision-making to advance “climate change mitigation and resilience” goals. This report recommends seven key regulatory reforms that would further those aims
Corporations and Other Business Associations: Cases and Materials
No full textSophisticated yet accessible, Corporations and Other Business Associations: Cases and Materials balances economic and legal theory with a flexible organization, popular case selection, and engaging problems. Current users will recognize a familiar format with creative updates. New users will recognize a casebook easily adaptable for use in a typical Corporations or Business Associations course, ranging in length from three to five credit hours, and providing ample material from which an instructor may choose how much emphasis to give to particular topics.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1355/thumbnail.jp
Stress Testing During Times of War
Get PDFIn the spring of 2009, the United States was mired in the greatest recession it had faced since the Great Depression. In March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen to 6,594.44, a total decline of 53.4 percent from its peak in the fall of 2007. The official unemployment rate was over 9 percent and still trending upward, eventually exceeding 10 percent. With the support of Congress, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) and other financial regulators had launched an array of initiatives to contain the fallout of what had become a global financial crisis. These interventions, including a massive recapitalization of US banks and the effective elimination of large, independent investment banks, had succeeded in stabilizing much of the financial system, but full functionality remained elusive. The crisis had revealed significant deficiencies in the banks’ risk management systems and the capacity of regulators to detect those weaknesses. Fear and distrust remained the order of the day.
Against this background, the Federal Reserve and other bank regulators took a gamble. On May 7, 2009, they publicly announced the results of the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP). As then-chairman Ben Bernanke explained, “the SCAP marked the first time the US bank regulatory agencies had conducted a supervisory stress test simultaneously across the largest banking firms” (Bernake, 2013). The Fed further deviated from tradition in its decision to disclose the results of the SCAP. In providing an unprecedented level of detail regarding the methodology and inputs used in reaching those results, the Fed challenged the assumption that bank supervision should always be shrouded behind a thick veil of secrecy. Both gambles paid off. As Bernanke later observed: “The SCAP stands out ... as one of the critical turning points in the financial crisis. It provided anxious investors with something they craved: credible information about prospective losses at banks” (Bernake, 2013)
ERA and Abortion Talking Points
Get PDFThe Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning 50 years of precedent protecting the fundamental right to abortion. If this draft indeed represents the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, it will be a monumental setback for women\u27s rights and signals that many of the most basic protections in our society, starting with reproductive rights, are under threat
Columbia Law School Holds Sixth Annual Human Rights Student Paper Symposium
Get PDFAgenda for the Sixth Annual Human Rights Student Paper Symposium
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No full textPhoto of Adaeze Eze \u2722.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/through_the_gale_podcast/1003/thumbnail.jp
Cutting Edge Ep1: Why Wasn’t Donald Trump Criminally Prosecuted in New York? What Happened and Why?
Get PDFIn 2021, Mark F. Pomerantz was appointed as a special assistant district attorney by New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to assist with that office’s criminal investigation into the personal and business finances of former President Donald Trump. Pomerantz developed evidence that led Vance to authorize a grand jury presentation that was intended to lead to an indictment. But in 2022, new District Attorney Alvin Bragg decided not to pursue an indictment — and Pomerantz resigned.
Pomerantz joins host John C. Coffee Jr., Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, and Jed Rakoff, federal district judge for the Southern District of New York and adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, for an in-depth discussion about the high-stakes probe and the level of confidence prosecutors feel they should have before deciding to indict.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cutting_edge/1000/thumbnail.jp
Cutting Edge Ep2: Special Counsel: Whose Interests Do They Serve?
Get PDFWhile a partner at Latham & Watkins, Michael Bosworth played a leading role in successfully defending Michael Sussman, the former Perkins Coie partner indicted by DOJ Special Counsel John Durham for allegedly making a single false statement in a conversation in 2016 with then-FBI General Counsel Jim Baker. (Sussman was acquitted by a unanimous vote.)
Bosworth, now a partner and deputy general counsel at Goldman Sachs, joins host John C. Coffee Jr., Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, and Jed S. Rakoff, federal district judge for the Southern District of New York and adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, to discuss the Sussman case and highlight the danger that a special counsel could seek retaliation against a president’s political enemies, even well after the president’s term.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cutting_edge/1001/thumbnail.jp
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No full textPhoto of Meera E Deo, The Honorable Vaino Spencer Chair and Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/through_the_gale_podcast/1012/thumbnail.jp
Public Nuisance as Risk Regulation
Get PDFPublic nuisance has always been defined in terms of the object of protection – the community, the public, or perhaps even the state as a whole. Public nuisance in this regard has been juxtaposed to private nuisance, which protects individual persons and their use and enjoyment of land. Commentary on public nuisance has thus long been concerned with defining (without notable success) what it means to advance a public as opposed to a private right.
In this paper, I offer a different take on the function of public nuisance. The common law is designed to provide redress for actual harm, whether it be the breach of a contractual promise or an injury to a person or property caused by the defendant\u27s tortious act. The requirement of actual harm, in tum, may be related to the standard form of relief at common law, which is money damages. Damages are easier to calculate when actual harms can be identified and measured. The limitation to actual harm, however, leaves a major lacuna in the common law: How can the system protect persons against the risk of future harm? My contention is that a central function of public nuisance was to supply – however imperfectly – a form of regulation of risks that had not yet resulted in actual harm