If you were a municipality that had to take action and condemn private property for the public good to avert disaster, before you got to court you would be particularly pleased to be able to say, "See, I told you so," pointing to an avoided calamity.  When one New Jersey beachfront community, the Borough of Harvey Cedars, took such action, the longed-for serendipity avoided both the trial and intermediate appellate courts. But then fortune smiled and the Borough enjoyed a favorable result before the New Jersey Supreme Court in Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan, decided just this mont...

Ground zero for climate change and rising sea levels in the United States is not a status to which any state aspires.  Florida distastefully remembers 2005 when 4 hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne - roared ashore, all within six weeks.   Delaware worries that 8-11% of the state will be submerged by 2100.  Today we learned that Louisiana’s concerns over rising sea levels and hurricanes have resulted in an enormous lawsuit, Board of Commissioners v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co LLC, against 100 oil and gas companies based on their activities i...

The greenhouse gas rule you’ve never heard of, the Deferral Rule, was shot down (barely) by the D.C. Circuit last week.  See Center for Biological Diversity v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 11-1101 (D.C. Cir., July 12, 2013).   The opinion offers a wonderful primer on greenhouse gas rulemaking and describes the Timing Rule, the Tailpipe Rule and the Tailoring Rule.  It also explains in great detail numerous doctrines concerning agency rulemaking.  And it balances on the edge of a knife.  There is an opinion (Tatel, J.).  There is a concurring opi...