EPA’s operating budgets and staff size are at historically low levels, and the volume of its facility inspections and civil enforcement cases has dropped. The enforcement resources available to state environmental agencies have also declined considerably. At the same time, the regulatory and enforcement responsibilities of both EPA and state agencies have expanded significantly.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) makes it a crime to “knowingly” take any member of an endangered species. The government has generally interpreted this to require the defendant’s knowledge of each of the elements of the offense; however, it has not been consistent in this interpretation. In several cases, it has argued that the defendant need only have knowingly engaged in an act that resulted in take, and that knowledge that a particular species will be taken is unnecessary. This Article argues that the statute requires knowledge of all the facts, including the identity of the species.

As the world begins implementing the Paris Agreement, Canada and the United States remain without comprehensive greenhouse gas regimes at the federal level; most action has taken place at the subnational level. At the forefront is the California-Quebec cap-and-trade market linkage. Close examination of this example demonstrates that such linkages are susceptible to constitutional constraints on both sides of the border.

For over 30 years, the United States has deployed an effective set of policies to promote energy efficiency, including appliance standards, information disclosure requirements, auto fuel economy standards, building codes, and tax rebates. From 1980 to 2014, the energy intensity of the U.S. economy declined by about 50%—a remarkable success story. Energy efficiency policies and technologies were responsible for a substantial portion of that decline. Climate and energy experts are now calling for the near-complete decarbonization of the U.S.

Investors, regulators, and shareholders have shown increasing interest in the information that corporations do and do not disclose about potential climate risks. Legal requirements in this area are complex, governed by an amalgam of securities laws dating back to the 1920s, state anti-fraud statutes, and more recent guidance and voluntary practices specific to climate risk. On March 17, 2016, the Energy Bar Association’s Environmental Regulation Committee convened a panel of expert practitioners to discuss these issues.

This Article examines how the Latin American procedure of “popular consultation” has been used as a mechanism for resisting the development of an open-pit gold mine in Colombia, and analyzes how Colombian communities are using the procedure to have meaningful involvement in environmental decisionmaking. A close study suggests that communities were able to engage in popular consultation because of certain conditions: First, most of Colombian society was aware of this participatory mechanism being written into the 1991 Constitution.

Colleges and universities that seek sustainability have a wide range of support organizations to draw upon for advice and tools. Such schools can also learn by studying the best sustainability operating system (SOS) practices adopted by their fellow collegiate institutions. The encouraging news is that some of these institutions are well on the way to establishing comprehensive, well-integrated sustainability programs. This Article, adapted from Chapter 15 of The Sustainability Handbook, 2nd Ed.

The year 2015 was the first year of implementing the revised Environmental Protection Law (EPL) of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party of China (CPC) issued several important policies on environmental protection, which have many implications for the implementation of the revised EPL and the future development of environmental law. In addition, 2015 was the last year of the 12th Five-Year Plan and the year immediately preceding the 13th Five- Year Plan.

The 2014 Draft Guidance issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has substantially increased understanding about how NEPA can contribute to informed consideration of the accelerating impacts of climate change. But the magnitude of NEPA’s contribution depends on how thoughtfully courts address questions that are among the most perplexing in environmental jurisprudence. This Comment addresses these questions in light of recent case law that illuminates when and how to consider climate change.

In December 2015, the U.S. Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the first multi-year federal transportation bill enacted in a decade. Almost unnoticed among nearly 500 pages of transportation law were 21 pages containing new, highly detailed procedural rules for federal agencies to follow in issuing permits for most major infrastructure and other capital projects, as well as authorization for a large administrative apparatus within the Executive Office of the President.