Under the TCI program, fuel suppliers would be required to hold allowances to cover their reported emissions.
By Jean-Philippe Brisson, Joshua T. Bledsoe, and Benjamin W. Einhouse
The Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional collaboration of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia, has advanced its program to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels. On October 1, 2019, TCI published a Framework for a Draft Regional Policy Proposal (the Policy Proposal).
This blog post reviews the presentation of the TCI program’s key design elements and summarizes key stakeholder comments on the Policy Proposal. Continue Reading
The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD or District) is developing a so-called Indirect Source Rule (ISR) that would require Southern California warehouses to reduce emissions associated with trucking activity and on-site equipment. Proposed Rule 2305, recently released by the District in discussion draft form, would establish the Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions (WAIRE) Program — which would apply to owners and operators of warehouses located in the South Coast Air Basin (Basin) with greater than 100,000 square feet of indoor space in a single building. If the SCAQMD’s development timeline holds, Proposed Rule 2305 will phase in on July 1, 2020. 
Recent federal court rulings in toxic tort litigations have stressed the importance of the dose-response relationship and the need to carefully evaluate the level of exposure to pass the Daubert standard for expert witness admissibility under the Federal Rules of Evidence 702. Under the Daubert standard, courts must assess whether the reasoning or methodology underlying the expert testimony is scientifically valid and whether those reasons or methodologies can be properly applied to the facts at issue. Dose-response methodology studies the relationship between the quantity of a substance (dose) and its overall effect (response) on a person, and is “the hallmark of basic toxicology.”
The French Parliament has adopted a new climate energy package to tackle the effects of climate change and boost France’s energy transition endeavors to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. As per Article 4.1 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, carbon neutrality is defined in the package as the balance, across the national territory, between anthropic emissions by sources and removal of greenhouse gases by sinks. Six key goals comprise this latest legislation. 
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published the final draft of the UK Stewardship Code 2020 (the Code), which sets out standards for UK institutional investors to adopt when engaging with their investments. Effective 1 January 2020, the revised Code places a greater focus on environment, social, and governance (ESG) matters. The changes reflect increased public interest in ESG since the UK Stewardship Code was last updated in 2012. 
On 8 November 2019, the Council of the EU published a press release announcing the adoption of legislative reforms that aim to enhance the proposed capital markets union. Notably, two of the reforms are related to sustainable finance: the Low Carbon Benchmark Regulation (LCBR), and the Disclosure Regulation, the full texts of which were published on 24 October 2019.
On 31 October 2019, the Administrative Court of Berlin dismissed a climate lawsuit brought by German citizens against the government. The plaintiffs had alleged that the government was violating their rights by missing certain climate protection targets.
On 2 November 2019, the UK government announced further details on two initiatives focused on helping the UK reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The first of these measures, HM Treasury’s Net Zero Review (Review), will consider how the UK should fund efforts to meet its net zero target. The second measure, the proposed Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF), aims to help energy-intensive industries reduce their carbon emissions. New details surrounding the proposed measures signal how both the Review and the IETF will impact the UK’s transition to net zero. 
On October 18, 2019, the EU, China, India, and five other countries combined to launch the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF). Acknowledging the role that private capital has to play in scaling up sustainable investment worldwide, the IPSF seeks to provide a platform to increase private-sector funding in this area. This blog post will consider in more detail the IPSF’s aims, as well as the ways in which the IPSF intends to achieve them. 
On 15 October 2019, the UK government published the final draft of Environment Bill 2019–20 (the Bill), which aims to set out the government’s environmental priorities post-Brexit. The Bill covers a broad range of topics ― from air quality to England’s future environmental governance — and gives a legal footing to several policy commitments that the government has made in recent years. This blog post will consider the Bill’s content, and the potential impact that the Bill may have on environmental regulation in England. 