This article was previously published in The Section of Litigation Enegy Litigation Committee, American Bar Association, Vol. 10, No. 3, Summer 2011.
In the last two years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has issued a series of regulations targeting greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. See Paulina
Williams and Jenifer Sutter, "2010: EPA Completes its First
Major Greenhouse Gas Rulemaking Initiatives,"
Vinson & Elkins Climate Change Report (February 21, 2011).
Just as those regulations have been broad in scope, so are the
legal challenges they now face. Business enterprises, trade
associations, public policy groups, states, and local governments
— joined by dozens of intervenors and amici curiae
— have filed a flood of petitions for judicial review,
principally in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit.
The litigation remains at an early stage, with the challengers'
initial merits briefs filed in March 2011, and the D.C. Circuit not
likely to hear argument in the main body of challenges before the
end of this year. But even a brief survey of the filings to date
demonstrates the exceptional importance and complexity of these
cases that bring before the courts what is among the most expensive
and far-reaching environmental regulatory programs in U.S. history.
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