Natural Resources Defense Council v. U.S. Department of the Interior
A district court granted in part and denied in part DOI's motion to dismiss a challenge to its 2017 interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that permitted the "incidental" taking of migratory birds. Environmental groups and states argued the agency's interpretation was arbitrary and capricio...
Defenders of Wildlife v. United States Department of the Interior
The Fourth Circuit vacated a biological opinion and incidental take statement issued by FWS in connection with a proposed natural gas pipeline that would run from West Virginia to North Carolina. Environmental groups argued that FWS improperly determined that construction of the pipeline would not j...
A Minimal Problem of Marginal Emissions
Prof. Richard L. Revesz and Dr. Burcin Unel provide a useful, albeit no longer current, review of electric energy storage in Managing the Future of the Electricity Grid: Energy Storage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Managing). The energy storage market has continued its rapid technical and manufacturing evolution. Those advances may reasonably be expected to impact today’s regulatory aims and frameworks, just as prior technological progress influenced administrative goals and processes.
Weighting the Risks and Benefits of Energy Storage on Fleet Emissions: Academics vs. Fundamentals
In their paper, Managing the Future of the Electricity Grid: Energy Storage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Richard L. Revesz and Burcin Unel of New York University School of Law (NYU team or authors) highlight a critical (and often times contentious) issue that the energy industry is attempting to address: how to quantify and incorporate a societal value of decreased greenhouse gas emissions into the dollar value of incremental energy that is provided to the electric system.
The Future of Energy Storage: Adopting Policies for a Cleaner Grid
The view that promoting the use of energy storage systems produces environmentally attractive results has been standard in policy circles. Policymakers have been enthusiastic about energy storage systems primarily because of their belief that cheaper and more prevalent storage options could help facilitate the integration of increased renewable energy generation and speed up the transition to a low-carbon grid. This beneficial outcome, however, is not guaranteed.