Insights

Washington, D.C.-based Environment & Natural Resources Group partner, Thomas A. Lorenzen, speaks to E&E News TV host Monica Trauzzi regarding the implications of the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling on Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). Lorenzen stated, "What the D.C. Circuit held yesterday is that certain states were being overregulated because the emission reductions required were more than necessary to get to attainment in all the linked downwind states." He added, "The agency's going to have to go back now and think about how you calculate goals for each of these affected states, and what that then does to the goals that are set for other states."

Thomas A. Lorenzen, a Washington, D.C.-based Environment & Natural Resources partner, discusses with Forbes the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Michigan v. EPA, which rejected the Obama administration's stance that the EPA need not consider costs when it determines that a utility pollutant must be regulated. The case, considered a challenge by the utility industry and 23 states whose electricity rates would likely rise if coal-fired power plants close, will now return to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. "It means that EPA can really no longer take any comfort in the fact there is a Chevron doctrine out there," Lorenzen said. "The courts are going to look skeptically" at regulations that have a major effect on the economy, he said. Lorenzen was also quoted in  Bloomberg, Bloomberg BNA, Congressional Quarterly, Financial Times, Law360, and Greenwire for his analysis of this high-profile ruling.

Washington, D.C.-based senior counsel in the firm's Environment & Natural Resources Group, Robert Meyers, talks with Law360 regarding Congress' approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which is likely going to be vetoed by President Obama. With a veto looming, Meyers offers that Congress may look at other areas, such as transmission siting and grid reliability, that don’t have the political history of Keystone and could have some reasonable prospect of success in 2015. "I imagine the House will reach out in a bipartisan manner on the type of economic issues where you can get that, as opposed to those that boil down to environmental issues," Meyers said.

Robert Meyers, Washington, D.C.-based senior counsel in the firm's Environment & Natural Resources Group, discusses potential new fuel economy regulations after record Clean Air Act fines were levied last year for greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy reporting violations. "In broad brush, I think this is a signal of increasing scrutiny, and I would attribute some of it to the fact of the suggested rulemaking," Meyers said.