Good morning! This is Akin’s newsletter on climate change policy and regulatory developments, providing information on major climate policy headlines from the past week and forthcoming climate-related events and hearings...more
On July 9, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) declined to stay a new Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) rule that seeks to limit methane emissions in the oil...more
The Biden-Harris Administration recently issued a suite of new rules aimed at addressing water and air quality, reducing methane emissions, protecting environmental justice communities, and accelerating the nation’s...more
Recently, there’s been much discussion about the potential benefits that artificial intelligence can bring to climate change regulation. For example, advanced technology, such as satellite data, is being used to identify...more
This week, we discuss a downward revision to electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc.’s governance grade and the equally controversial topic of diverging ESG ratings methodologies. Investigative findings published in May this...more
Good afternoon! This is Akin’s newsletter on climate change policy and regulatory developments, providing information on major climate policy headlines from the past two weeks and forthcoming climate-related events and...more
On March 4, 2024, MethaneSat, a satellite developed by a subsidiary of the Environmental Defense Fund that will locate and quantify methane emissions from oil and gas operations, was launched into orbit. According to the...more
A stream of judicial decisions in the pipeline will have important implications for the energy industry. The three cases discussed below are among those that energy litigators and industry professionals are watching in 2024....more
Good afternoon! This is Akin’s newsletter on climate change policy and regulatory developments, providing information on major climate policy headlines from the past week and forthcoming climate-related events and hearings...more
Here are curated AG and federal regulatory news stories highlighting key areas in which state and federal regulators’ decisions are having an impact across the US: •Wisconsin Shows Timeshare Exit Company the Exit - ...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final methane rule limits methane emissions from the oil and gas sector and may be the latest battleground over whether the agency is exceeding its authority to regulate...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") has proposed regulations for calculating methane emissions fees required beginning this year under the Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA"). Section 136 of the Clean Air Act (added...more
PM NAAQS: Already behind schedule is perhaps the mostly widely impactful rule change EPA has proposed in many years: a lowering of the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). EPA has...more
In recent years, the global concentration of methane present in the atmosphere has increased dramatically. In fact, in 2021, methane increased by almost 18 parts per billion in the atmosphere, the largest single year increase...more
Key Takeaways - • What Is Happening? On December 2, 2023, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final Clean Air Act (Act) rule designed to...more
COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber convened a small group discussion on Sunday to discuss outstanding issues on adaptation and equitable transitions ahead of updated draft texts. A new round of draft texts is expected on Monday...more
The Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 19 released new reports regarding the impact of methane emissions from food waste. As previously discussed in this space[i], many states have passed regulations to address methane...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued an October 2023 report titled: Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste (“Report”)...more
Good afternoon! This is Akin’s newsletter on climate change policy and regulatory developments, providing information on major climate policy headlines from the past week and forthcoming climate-related events and hearings......more
Biomethane is indistinguishable from natural gas and can be deployed as a drop-in renewable replacement to natural gas without the need for adaptation of network infrastructure or end-user equipment. The scale of...more
In 2015, California’s former governor Edmund Brown Jr. set methane emissions-reduction targets for the state. Senate Bill 1383 requires that California reduce organic waste disposal 75 percent by the year 2025. Although most...more
[co-author:Leila Fleming] Good evening! This is Akin Gump’s weekly policy newsletter on climate change policy and regulatory developments, providing information on major climate policy headlines from this past week and...more
ESG is increasingly vying for airtime in oil and gas boardrooms as leaders grapple with how best tackle environmental, social and governance challenges. This follows a trend of ESG support throughout all sectors of the U.S....more
This article is the second in a two-part series analyzing recent proposals by federal agencies to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas production. The first article addresses the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM)...more
EPA floats sharply increased social cost of carbon - E&E News – November 21 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a new estimate for the social cost of carbon emissions, nearly quadrupling an interim...more