2013 has drawn to a close; here is our take on the top six climate change legal stories in the last six months.  1.  Climate Change Assessments - Blockbuster legislation may have been evaded once more but that has not stopped those in the trenches. Assessments of climate change risk are becoming more routine. For example, the September 2013 Record of Decision for the Gowanus Canal Superfund Site required assessment of “periods of high rainfall, including future rainfall increases that may result from climate change” in implementing certain aspects of the cleanup remedy.&n...

The Congress may be dysfunctional but the administrative agencies are still moving the ball.  A case in point is last week’s Christmas present from EPA to the carbon capture and storage community.  On December 17 EPA issued its final rule, Hazardous Waste Management System: Conditional Exclusion for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Streams in Geologic Sequestration Activities.  In so doing, EPA provided “regulatory clarity to help facilitate the implementation of [CCS] technology in a safe and responsible way.” Carbon capture and storage is a technology with three distinc...