Abstract
Although Congress did not put climate change legislation on President Obama’s desk, the Obama Administration still moved ahead with various regulatory measures to control GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions. Using authority under the Clean Air Act and other existing environmental statutes, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies have been expanding existing regulatory programs to cover GHG emissions and address climate change concerns. Several measures are already in place and others are in the regulatory pipeline, although citizen suit litigation could produce still more.
The extension of federal regulatory authority to control GHG emissions under existing statutory frameworks is a mistake. Such regulation will impose substantial regulatory costs for minimal environmental gain. Centralized regulatory authority offers little hope of controlling the planetary thermostat. Instead, mitigating the threat of anthropogenic climate change requires a different approach—one that is not authorized under existing law and that does not require dramatic expansions of the federal regulatory state.
This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2011
Publication Information
34 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 421-452 (2011)
Repository Citation
Adler, Jonathan H., "Heat Expands All Things: The Proliferation of Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under the Obama Administration" (2011). Faculty Publications. 2310.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2310