Speaker 1: We're talking about the biggest legal developments of One of
Speaker 1: Justice Scalia's final official acts before he died was to
Speaker 1: cast what would prove to be an important environmental law vote.
Speaker 1: He joined a five justice majority to put on hold
Speaker 1: President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which would curb emissions from
Speaker 1: power plants. That order, it turns out, may have marked
Speaker 1: the plans final day. The Clean Power Plan is just
Speaker 1: one of the many Obama environmental initiatives now in jeopardy
Speaker 1: with the election of Donald Trump. With me to talk
Speaker 1: about the year in environmental law is Charles Warren, who
Speaker 1: chairs the environmental practice at Cramer Levin in New York. Chuck,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Is the Clean Power Plan now
Speaker 1: dead with Donald Trump's election? Not necessarily, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's before the Court of Appeals for the District of
Speaker 1: Columbia Circuit and if they upholded, which they could do,
Speaker 1: you know, before the inauguration, Uh, then it would be
Speaker 1: up to the new administration to try and change it.
Speaker 1: And to change they have to go through a whole
Speaker 1: regulation process. And it's not that easy to change regulations
Speaker 1: because they have to come up with a basis for
Speaker 1: making a change. And if they and go through the
Speaker 1: whole process, get comments, and then they're subject to the lawsuits.
Speaker 1: And it showed during the Bush years when they tried
Speaker 1: to make some changes, they were often styme eaten by
Speaker 1: the courts. In the end, whether or not it it
Speaker 1: is uh still alive. Um has it accomplished some of
Speaker 1: its goals just by by the specter of it being
Speaker 1: out there and and you have power company has gone
Speaker 1: ahead and made the sorts of changes that the president
Speaker 1: was hoping for. Yes, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 1: I think it has accomplished a lot of what it
Speaker 1: was trying to do because power companies are now starting
Speaker 1: to make those kinds of changes or have put them
Speaker 1: initiated them. Um, these things take a while, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the companies saw the handwriting on the wall,
Speaker 1: and they even started before the Clean Power Plan was
Speaker 1: put into effect to try to move away from coal
Speaker 1: and go to natural gas. I think when you see
Speaker 1: utilities like a E P, which is the biggest user
Speaker 1: of coal how or was the biggest user of coal
Speaker 1: of all utilities, start to convert plants to natural gas,
Speaker 1: you know that there's a wholesale movement away from coal.
Speaker 1: Regardless of what happens to this regulation. In the end,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other Obama environmental initiatives out there,
Speaker 1: some of them in the courts. Which of those d
Speaker 1: c as being in the greatest danger at this point? Well,
Speaker 1: besides the Clean Power Plan, I mean, I think there
Speaker 1: are other there. There are some things like even though
Speaker 1: it's our Kane, what the Obama administration has been trying
Speaker 1: to do about under the Clean Water Act defining waters
Speaker 1: in the United States, which is something that's been a
Speaker 1: very controversial thing, and it's how broad the reach of
Speaker 1: the government is in terms of regulating wet lands. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's something that could change under the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. It's has been a very controversial regulation. I
Speaker 1: think that's something could change. There's some other regulations, air
Speaker 1: regulations that are out there also. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: you have the mercury rule. Is that is that the
Speaker 1: mercury rule, And I mean that's already you know, that's
Speaker 1: one thing that's UH. I think also going a long
Speaker 1: way to having utilities change their UH practices already, but
Speaker 1: that's something that they could try to change. Also. I
Speaker 1: see that I see that as another thing that might
Speaker 1: be UH there And and then, you know, I think
Speaker 1: just in general, I think there'll be a lot of
Speaker 1: reduction of the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency e
Speaker 1: p A and to try and sort of stop them
Speaker 1: from doing enforcement and writing new regulations and those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. So I think that's where you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of effort devoted by the new administration and the
Speaker 1: new administrator, Scott Pruitt, who was pretty hostile to e
Speaker 1: p A. Chuck, we only have about thirty seconds left,
Speaker 1: but I did want to ask you about the Paris
Speaker 1: Climate Accord. Where do things stand on that, what's happened
Speaker 1: over the past twelve months. Yeah, I think the Paris
Speaker 1: Climate Agreement is, you know, really a landmark agreement. They
Speaker 1: had a d signatories around the world and so far
Speaker 1: it's been ratified by a hundred and twenty parties, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a signature accomplishment. Uh. And while while
Speaker 1: they are still goals in essence and countries have to
Speaker 1: follow through on them, and I think again that's something
Speaker 1: that you may see a slackening in this administration in
Speaker 1: following through on the US commitments. But I think the
Speaker 1: fact that you have so many countries around the world
Speaker 1: that are committed to do it and major players around
Speaker 1: the world. I think it's going to still have momentum. Chuck,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Chuck Warmer Warren of of Cramer Levin. Coming up, we
Speaker 1: talk election law. This is Bloomberg