States - Climate Extra

Environmentalists, Utilities Clash Over Softening California GHG Targets

California’s largest electric utilities and environmentalists are clashing over whether the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) should ease greenhouse gas-reduction targets for 2030 and beyond, engaging in disputes about whether enough affordable renewable power will come online to meet demand growth and achieve the targets. “The Commission must uphold and maintain its greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) planning targets,” attorneys for the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) and Sierra Club argue in Oct. 31 comments to CPUC. “Some parties suggest loosening the...

Democrats’ Election Wins Boost Calls To Embrace ‘Clean, Cheap’ Energy

Democrats’ strong showing in the Nov. 4 off-year elections is prompting clean energy advocates to ramp up their pitch for policymakers to embrace “cheaper and cleaner” power as an electoral boost, amid indications that concerns about inflation and affordability were a major factor in the party’s victories. The scope of the victories -- centered largely in liberal or swing states like California, Virginia and New Jersey but also including key pickups in conservative states like Georgia -- is also prompting...

Industry Faults CARB GHG-Reporting Template, Seeks Compliance Delays

Numerous industry groups from across the country are faulting the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) greenhouse gas-reporting template that thousands of companies can use to publicly divulge for the first time their emissions profiles as required by a landmark 2023 state law, while also reiterating calls for compliance delays. “[T]here are concerns that use of the Draft Reporting Template, which contains nearly 200 spreadsheet rows, is likely to result in over-reporting, impose undue administrative burdens, and compromise the accuracy and...

Court Grants Industry Bid To Block CARB Enforcement Of Clean Truck Pact

A federal court is granting truck manufacturers’ request for a preliminary injunction on the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) 2023 Clean Truck Partnership (CTP), agreeing with industry that CARB’s recent state court suit to enforce the deal marked a backdoor means of enforcing emissions rules despite Congress’ repeal of EPA’s preemption waivers. However, the court is rejecting the truck makers’ request for injunctions on several CARB regulations, as well as their First Amendment claim. CARB’s “filing of that lawsuit is...

Groups Oppose Court Ruling Against New York Climate Superfund Law

Environmental groups are backing New York’s calls for a federal court to deny the Trump administration’s push to quickly block the state’s climate “superfund” law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay the state damages in compensation for climate change-linked natural disasters. Trump officials “allege that the [New York law] intrudes into exclusively federal affairs, but their arguments rest on misguided assumptions and lack evidentiary support,” the groups say in an amicus brief in United States of America v....

CARB Unveils Rule Concepts To Implement New Cap & Invest Program Laws

California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials are floating regulatory concepts to implement two new laws overhauling the state’s greenhouse gas cap-and-invest program, including by reducing GHG allowances given for free to regulated sectors and mitigating emissions leakage -- while also broadly considering “affordability” effects. “Reduced federal efforts to address GHG emissions or to provide financial support for decarbonization underscores the need for California leadership in reducing GHG emissions while considering affordability and minimizing emissions leakage,” states a CARB staff presentation...

Officials Optimistic That State, Local Policy Can Approach Biden GHG Goal

New analysis suggests state and local governments, paired with a renewed federal commitment to climate efforts after the Trump term ends, could still nudge the U.S. toward major greenhouse gas cuts that might even approach a Biden-era Paris target that Trump officials are seeking to undermine. An Oct. 28 report from America Is All In, a coalition of state and local officials dedicated to advancing climate policy, and the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability finds it possible to...

Attorney Sees ‘Headwinds’ For State Climate Policies Amid Trump Assault

A lawyer who has represented low-emitting power generators says federal officials are creating new headwinds for state climate policies that did not exist during the first Trump administration, with Trump officials now striving to ensure that neither states nor the federal government can advance policies to limit greenhouse gases. “You might remember back in [the first Trump administration] it was, ‘We’re still in. The states are going to carry forward. We’re going to keep moving forward, regardless of what happens...

California Charges Truck Makers With Breaching Pact To Lower Emissions

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is suing four major truck manufacturers in state court for allegedly breaching their commitments to reduce emissions under the board’s 2023 Clean Truck Partnership (CTP), even as the same truck makers are suing the board in federal court to overturn the CTP. “This action reflects CARB’s commitment to ensure that agreements with industry are not only meaningful, but that parties making agreements follow through and California gets the benefits of its bargain, which protects...

Louisiana’s Pause On New CCS Permits May Signal Hurdles For Other States

Louisiana officials are halting review of new carbon storage permits to focus on those already in the queue, amid a flood of permit requests and local community pushback -- in a move that one observer says should serve as a warning to other states seeking primacy from EPA to issue such Class VI permits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. “All of the dialogue has been . . . ‘primacy is going to mean we’re going to get faster...

CARB Unveils Plan For New Vehicle Emission, ZEV Rules Amid Trump Attacks

California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials are outlining their new rulemaking for criteria pollutant, greenhouse gas and zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) standards for model year 2031-and-beyond cars and trucks, as the board continues to fight the Trump administration’s attacks on the state’s ability to set more stringent rules than EPA. “As a result of these illegal and unconstitutional actions by the federal government, we find ourselves in . . . an enormous emissions-reduction hole,” said Chris Grundler, CARB’s deputy executive officer...

CARB Rebuts Industry 9th Circuit Bid To Halt State’s GHG-Disclosure Laws

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is detailing why it believes the 9th Circuit should reject industry’s bid to quickly block implementation of California’s corporate climate-disclosure laws, including claims related to the level of scrutiny courts should apply, the application of “commercial speech,” and a lack of harm to companies. In an Oct. 16 answering brief in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. v. Lauren Sanchez, et al. , CARB elaborates on why the lower...

CARB Delay Of GHG-Disclosure Rules Heightens Compliance Uncertainty

The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) announcement that it is delaying the adoption of rules to implement two landmark climate-disclosure laws until early next year is elevating uncertainty about which large companies will have to comply and when, according to observers. “CARB is already behind its publicly disclosed rulemaking timelines, and this latest delay only compounds lingering uncertainty regarding applicability and compliance with the California Climate Laws,” attorneys with Vinson & Elkins write in an Oct. 16 post . The...

Firms Aim To Continue Suits Against CARB Truck Fleet Rule, ZEV Mandate

Oil and trucking firms are informing a California superior court they will continue challenging the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) truck regulation and its mandate that manufacturers only sell zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) beginning in 2036, despite CARB’s recent move to scale back the measure. “CARB is not repealing the 2036 ZEV Sales Mandate, and in the proposed ACF amendments, CARB provides no rationale (or discussion whatsoever) for keeping the 2036 ZEV Sales Mandate in force; nor...

CARB Seeks Dismissal Of Industry, EPA Suit To Block Truck Deal, Rules

California Air Resources Board (CARB) attorneys are pressing a federal district court to dismiss truck makers’ and EPA’s lawsuit to block the board’s 2023 Clean Truck Partnership (CTP) and several emission rules, arguing that “sovereign immunity” bars the claims and that the plaintiffs lack standing or are not being injured. “To begin, all of Plaintiffs’ claims against CARB and [Gov. Gavin Newsom (D)], as well as all of Plaintiffs’ state-law claims against all Defendants, should be dismissed because sovereign immunity...

Newsom Signs EJ-Opposed Bill To Develop CO2 Pipeline Regulations

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill requiring the State Fire Marshall (SFM) to adopt regulations for the transportation of carbon dioxide in pipelines, including safety standards that must be as protective as proposed requirements from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). But environmental justice (EJ) and other groups are criticizing the move because they want a partial moratorium on CO2 pipelines in the state to remain in place at least until PHMSA...

Industry Urges DOJ To Challenge Local Gas Hookup Rules, Building Codes

Industry groups and free market think tanks are encouraging the Trump administration to embrace arguments that various federal laws preempt state and local ordinances that ban or limit the use of gas appliances, a move aimed to bolster the administration’s ongoing attacks on state climate policies. “By banning fossil fuel infrastructure, they are setting an appliance energy use standard of zero for all gas appliances -- a stricter standard than the federal appliance standard, which causes a violation of” the...

CARB Lists Companies Subject To GHG-Disclosure Laws, Seeks Feedback

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released a “preliminary” list of thousands of large companies that it believes are subject to the state’s landmark laws requiring firms to report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change-related financial risks, and it is seeking feedback from stakeholders about whether the list is accurate. CARB “encourages companies to complete the survey if they are”: listed but qualify for a potential exemption; listed but should not have been; listed, though a parent company...

Industry, Free Market Groups Craft Broad Target List For State Climate Laws

Industry and free market groups are detailing a broad assortment of state climate laws that they want the Trump administration to challenge in new legal actions, arguing the Justice Department (DOJ) must intervene to assert federal preemption over a host of measures affecting vehicle emissions, climate-related disclosures and cap-and-trade programs. In recent comments submitted to DOJ, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree Chamber) writes that numerous state and local climate programs “pose substantial burdens on businesses across the...

Washington State Carbon Trading Program Survives High Court Challenge

Washington state’s relatively young greenhouse gas “cap-and-invest” program has survived another major threat to its continued implementation, after the Supreme Court declined to hear a power company’s appeal asserting that the program unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal, issued in a brief Oct. 6 order , comes nearly a year after state voters in the November election rejected a ballot initiative that would have repealed the carbon trading program. The justices did not...

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