EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) is the Agency’s chief legal advisor, providing counsel to EPA policymakers and providing critical input to Agency rules, regulations, and guidance documents. In this episode—the second in a series of podcasts in which we talk to former EPA General Counsels—Kevin Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who worked within EPA’s OGC for 18 years, talks to former EPA General Counsel Scott Fulton, who now serves as President of ELI.
Local governments often require developers to bear the costs of new infrastructure. Known as “exactions”, the funds help localities address the burdens that growth places on schools, transportation, water, and sewers. But Professors Jim Rossi and Christopher Serkin, both with Vanderbilt University Law School, have proposed imposing “energy exactions” to address the energy impacts of new residential or commercial growth. In this episode, Linda Breggin, a senior attorney at ELI, and students from the law school talk to Professors Rossi and Serkin to learn more about this novel idea.
EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) is the Agency’s chief legal advisor, providing counsel to EPA policymakers and providing critical input to Agency rules, regulations, and guidance documents. In this episode—the third in a series of podcasts in which we talk to former EPA General Counsels—Kevin Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who worked within EPA’s OGC for 18 years, talks to former EPA General Counsel Roger Martella, who now serves as Director and General Counsel for General Electric’s Environment, Health and Safety operations worldwide.
Extreme heat kills more people than any other natural disaster, and heat waves are growing longer, hotter, and more frequent, due to climate change. Cities are particularly impacted because climate change exacerbates the urban heat island effect. In this episode, ELI’s Cynthia Harris chats with Rachel Licker, Senior Climate Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Michael Gerrard, Professor at Columbia Law School and Faculty Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law; and Councilmember Tom Hucker, from Montgomery County, MD, to learn about one possible tool cities can bring to bear on this public health crisis: air conditioning mandates.
Last October, policymakers, lawmakers, technologists, NGOs, and leaders from some of the world’s most innovative companies joined ELI in Seattle, Washington, at its inaugural GreenTech conference to explore environmental protection in an era of transformative technological change. In this episode, ELI’s Dominic Scicchitano speaks to Kasantha Moodley, ELI’s Manager of Innovation and Governance, and ELI President Scott Fulton, both of whom played an integral role in orchestrating the conference. They discuss the conference’s origins, highlights from the event, and plans for GreenTech 2020. Additional information about GreenTech, including a summary from the 2019 conference, are available at https://www.greentechconference.org/.
EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) is the Agency’s chief legal advisor, providing counsel to EPA policymakers and providing critical input to Agency rules, regulations, and guidance documents. In this episode, Kevin Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who worked within EPA’s OGC for 18 years, talks to former EPA General Counsel Ann Klee, who served as General Counsel from June 2004 to July 2006. This episode is part of a year-long series of conversations with former EPA General Counsels, allowing listeners to hear first-hand accounts of their experiences at EPA.
On January 10, 2020, CEQ proposed a comprehensive rewrite of the NEPA regulations that govern how federal agencies identify, analyze, and mitigate for the anticipated environmental impacts of proposed major federal actions. To help listeners better understand the proposal, ELI Senior Attorney Jim McElfish talks to Nick Yost, one of the nation’s most experienced NEPA lawyers and the primary drafter of the original 1978 regulations. For more on the proposal, check out Practitioners’ Guide to the Proposed NEPA Regulations.
What do everyday practices like streaming a movie online, purchasing a new pair of jeans, or eating a burger have to do with climate change? Sadly, it turns out almost everything we do, use, and eat has a significant impact on climate change because of the way we use resources, create waste, and emit greenhouse gases without even thinking about it. In this episode, Senior Attorney Linda Breggin sits down with Tatiana Schlossberg, author of Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have, to learn more.
EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) is the Agency’s chief legal advisor, providing counsel to EPA policymakers and providing critical input to Agency rules, regulations, and guidance documents. In this episode, Kevin Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who worked within EPA’s OGC for 18 years, talks to former EPA General Counsel Gary Guzy, who served as General Counsel from July 1999 to January 2001. This episode is part of a year-long series of conversations with former EPA General Counsels, allowing listeners to hear first-hand accounts of their experiences at EPA.
Drinking water contamination in Flint, Michigan, has garnered nationwide attention, but it is neither isolated, nor a primarily urban problem. As Madeline Kane explains in the April issue of ELR—The Environmental Law Reporter, a hidden water crisis is straining thousands of smaller communities that share Flint’s risk factors—shrinking populations, social marginalization, and deficient funds. In this episode, ELR’s Hunter Jones talk to Madeline Kane, a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, to learn more about the problem, its causes, and potential solutions.