Significant Climate Issues Likely to Be Raised in the Federal Courts

October 2010

Citation:

ELR 10925

Issue

Author

Robert A. Wyman, Leila B. Azari, Delavan Dickson, Patricia A. Eberwine, Marie Ly, and Emily Taylor

Editors' Summary

Climate change legislation and rulemaking will present fertile ground for judicial inquiry. Specifically, the courts can expect to field challenges to the scope of EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, the scope of state authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and citizen access to the courts to seek damages, challenge projects, or enforce climate regulations. Ideally, Congress will decide many of these issues in forthcoming legislation, but one can expect many more to fall to the federal courts to resolve.

Robert A. Wyman serves as a Global Co-Chair of the Latham & Watkins LLP Climate Change Practice Group. He resides in the firm's Los Angeles office. Delavan Dickson was an associate in the firm's Los Angeles office prior to leaving the firm for a judicial clerkship. All other co-authors are associates in the firm's Los Angeles office. Supporting analysis on the subject of EPA discretion under the Clean Air Act was conducted by Claudia O'Brien, a Global Co-Chair of the firm's Climate Change Practice Group, who resides in the firm's Washington, D.C., office, and Kellie Ortega, an associate in the D.C. office. This Article was prepared as part of a presentation on climate change issues to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Monterey, California, on July 23, 2009.

Significant Climate Issues Likely to Be Raised in the Federal Courts

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Significant Climate Issues Likely to Be Raised in the Federal Courts