Dismantling Environmental Law

Deborah Sivas discusses the recent rollback of environmental laws, calls to streamline environmental review to speed up development, and the role communities should play in decisions about what gets built. ---As the push to build more infrastructure gains attention, so does debate over the role of environmental protections and public participation. How can communities have a voice in development while still allowing needed projects to move forward?Stanford's Deborah Sivas, JD ’87, environmental law expert and co-director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford Law School, joins Pam Karlan to discuss the “climate abundance” movement and its implications for environmental law. Sivas examines whether changes to environmental permitting would address the challenges of building new infrastructure and how communities can have a meaningful say in those decisions. “It’s not durable if you don’t have a population to support it,” she says. “If people can see it as a win-win coming into their communities in a way that benefits them as well as larger policy goals, to me, that’s the right way forward—not disenfranchising them.”Sivas and Karlan discuss how environmental law is evolving amid new policy and legal developments, including the current administration’s push for expanded fossil fuel development, changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a proposal to open some of Alaska’s last old-growth forests to logging. Links:Deborah A. Sivas >>> Stanford Law School pageEndangered Species Act’s “harm” rule, explained  >>> Stanford Law School pageConnect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageDiego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X(00:00:00) Introduction and welcoming Debbie Sivas (00:02:16) What is "climate abundance"? (00:04:22) Deregulation for fossil fuels, not clean energy (00:06:26) Why the grid really isn't being built (00:08:32) Killing wind projects(00:10:31) NEPA, the Supreme Court, and citizen suits (00:13:03) Courts vs. agencies: a legal whiplash (00:14:40) Opening Alaska's roadless forests to logging (00:18:57) A "concrete proposal" for environmental democracy (00:22:08) The national and global collective action problem (00:24:02) Novel legal tools: IEEPA, the Alien Enemies Act, and the Defense Production Act (00:25:42) Citizen suits' achilles' heel (00:27:24) Training the next generation of environmental lawyers (00:29:40) Clinic spotlight: Northern Chumash Tribal Council (00:31:13) Closing thoughts  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.