The Law of Climate Change
As a former senior member of the White House staff, serving President Bill Clinton as Chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force and Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Initiatives, Roger Ballentine brings a lot of relevant experience to the table. I had the chance to visit his course a few weeks ago. A winter term course offering, The Law of Climate Change explored the developing legal, business, and policy frameworks relating to climate change.
On the day I visited, Ballentine was discussing the legal frameworks and developments for climate change over time. Since 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has regularly published a list of pollutants considered harmful for the public health. Congress delegated the authority for establishing pollutant guidelines to the EPA which in turn has allowed individual states to regulate guidelines for many pollutants within their own borders. Sources of pollution considered “mobile”, such as car emissions, remain under the direct jurisdiction of the EPA. Still, the challenges of regulation on the state and federal levels have highly been contentious.
Take for instance the EPA’s legal position on global warming that was reversed at the request of the energy industry. “Under the Clinton Administration, EPA’s legal position was that carbon dioxide was a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and that EPA had legal authority to regulate emissions by industry and coal power plants,” explained Ballentine. The then General Counsel of the EPA, Jonathan Cannon, claimed that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were indeed air pollutants subject to EPA regulation. Subsequently, under the Bush administration, Cannon’s successor Robert Fabricant reversed the Cannon memo denying the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. He further determined that the EPA was not authorized to set greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles. “There really are frustrating inconsistencies,” said Ballentine.
After class, I was able to catch up with 2L Zach Gerson, an editor for the Environmental Law Review and board member of the Environmental Law Society, who sees Ballentine’s class as an essential precursor to a career in environmental law. “I believe that global Climate Change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today and that a legal framework for addressing that challenge is actively developing right now. The complex nature of climate change raises complex legal questions, and I think it is fascinating to be able to be in a cutting edge class where the focus is not only what the law currently is, but also on how the law is actively changing to meet a profound new challenge. It is rewarding to be in a law course that incorporates other disciplines so heavily rather than focusing only on legal doctrine. Climate change is inherently linked with science, economics, business, and politics, and perhaps because there is not yet clear law for climate change issues, this course has been enjoyable because it can focus on how those other disciplines are interacting with the law as it develops.”
