On 25 April 2023, the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted in favour of a revised version of the EU draft Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“the Draft Directive”).
The revised version differs from the versions that we have previously commented on here, here and here in the following key respects:
President Biden signed a new Executive Order (E.O.) to advance environmental justice (EJ) late last week, just in time for Earth Day. E.O. 14096, Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, aims to carry out its title through a bevy of actions, including requiring agencies to create EJ strategic plans, directing research on EJ issues, expanding notifications for toxic chemical releases, and increasing coordination on EJ by establishing a new EJ Interagency Council and White House Office of Environmental Justice. The new E.O. builds on the Biden Administration’s “whole-of-government” approach to EJ, making clear that the obligation to consider and address EJ applies across federal agencies. The E.O.’s directives are likely to guide federal agency permitting, funding grants, and other authorizations for projects or activities that may have implications for EJ communities. On the same day as the E.O. was signed, the administration also announced a handful of other steps to further its EJ priorities.
On 12 April, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESMA, EBA, and EIOPA1) published a Consultation Paper proposing amendments to the European Commission’s Regulatory Technical Standards that implement Europe’s comparatively new environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regime – the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
The state must dramatically expand its energy infrastructure and renewable energy sources to satisfy growing demand for electricity while meeting ambitious climate goals, according to California Independent System Operator’s Draft 2022-2023 Transmission Plan.
By Marc Campopiano, Joshua Bledsoe, Julie Miles, and Shawna Strecker
California has committed to ambitious carbon reduction targets and pledged to become carbon neutral no later than 2045.[1] However, to meet these lofty goals while providing reliable energy for millions, the state must commit to an unprecedented degree of renewable power and transmission line development.
The challenge is highlighted by the Draft 2022-2023 Transmission Plan (Draft Transmission Plan) published on April 3, 2023, by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the independent energy grid operator that serves approximately 80% of California and a small part of Nevada. As of 2018, California had about 80 gigawatts (GW) of total electric generating capacity.[2] CAISO predicts that California will need to almost double that total capacity in the next decade with new renewable generation and greatly expand the transmission grid in order to achieve clean power targets and vast electrification programs as California attempts to phase out fossil fuel usage. This scale of infrastructure buildout will require unprecedented investments, vastly expedited environmental permitting and review by regulatory agencies, and sustained political will to substantially incentivize and streamline priority projects.
This blog post examines the ambitious roadmap outlined in the Draft Transmission Plan, and CAISO’s long-term transmission planning more broadly, to advance California’s climate goals by undertaking 46 transmission projects and adding at least 40 GW, mostly from renewable sources, to the CAISO grid over the next 10 years.
GHG Emissions: EPA Announces New Standards with Vehicle Emissions Reduction Goals
On Wednesday, April 12, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new emissions standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles manufactured from 2027 to 2032. As proposed, these standards would become increasingly stringent across the six-year period, both for light- and medium-duty vehicles. The new
The Florida Rules of Civil Procedure aim “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” For a corporate defendant, the difficulty of obtaining summary judgment in Florida state courts seemed anathema to that goal. Two years ago, however, the Florida Supreme Court amended its summary judgment standard to conform with the Federal
On April 13, 2023, the Commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) voted to approve a proposal that will accelerate the commercialization of fusion energy in the United States. Specifically, the NRC determined that fusion energy be regulated under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s byproduct material framework contained in 10 C.F.R. Part 30, “Rules of
On April 4, the Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2023-29 (the Notice), which describes certain rules the IRS intends to include in proposed regulations for qualifying for the energy community bonus production tax credit (PTC) rate and investment tax credit (ITC) amount under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).
On March 30, the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM), an independent governance body that aims to set and maintain a global standard for quality in the voluntary carbon market, announced the launch of its Core Carbon Principles. The Core Carbon Principles (CCPs) are intended to establish fundamental principles for high-quality carbon credits that create a verifiable climate impact, based on the latest science and best practice. On the same day, ICVCM also issued the Program-level Assessment Framework and the Assessment Procedures, both designed to assist carbon-crediting programs in verifying that such programs and the credits that they issue comply with the CCPs. Given the role that ICVCM has assumed in recent discussions concerning integrity in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), the CCPs and related Program-level Assessment Framework and Assessment Procedures are likely to draw significant attention from stakeholders at all stages of the VCM-supply chain.
The arrogance or ignorance of state and local lawmaking will not stand in this instance of clear federal preemption dating to the 2005 EPCA.
