LPDD March Newsletter — Model Climate Laws Initiative

New LPDD Model Laws

This month, the LPDD team published a new model law amending the definition of "Fair Market Value" in the Federal Coal Leasing Act. By modifying the definition of "Fair Market Value" under which the Bureau of Land Management may lease land for coal projects, developers will be forced to account for more potential revenues and social costs in their lease terms.

The model law would fill three gaps in the current law: (1) provide a definition of “Fair Market Value” which considers all of the relevant factors, including the social costs and export value of coal mining; (2) provide a requirement that the leasing program does not create an imbalance of benefits between the federal government and the lessee or purchaser; and (3) provide an oversight mechanism which requires the Secretary to publish their calculations and subject them to public scrutiny.

New External Resources

modelclimatelaws.org is being continually updated with new, external legal resources. Below is a selection of recently added resources.

Illinois Bans Local Renewables Bans: In January, the Illinois Legislature passed H.B. 4412, setting requirements for utility-scale wind and solar projects, and barring local governments from having any rules that are more restrictive than the state rules. Counties with bans on renewable energy development must rescind those restrictions within 120 days.
Vermont Gets Closer to First Clean Heat Standard: In March, the Vermont Senate approved potentially landmark legislation to create the nation's first Clean Heat Standard (CHS). The bill would task the PUC with designing a system to fund the transition to “clean heat measures,” such as weatherization, electric cold-climate heat pumps, advanced wood heating systems, the use of some biofuels, and other measures. Per the bill, individuals and businesses that install clean heat measures would earn credits, while those that import heating fuel into the state - including oil, propane, natural gas, coal and kerosene - would need to obtain clean heat credits to offset their lifecycle carbon emissions. This bill is responsive to Vermont's 2021 Climate Action Plan, which called for the creation of a CHS. While the governor vetoed similar legislation in 2022, current supermajorities for Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature make overriding another veto possible. This pending legislation joins a CHS program design report from the Regulatory Assistance Project and a Final Report from the Massachusetts Commission on Clean Heat among examples of early movers in our new pathway on this emerging policy area, Clean Heat Standards.
New Jersey's "Six Pillars" of Climate Action Include Gas Transition and 100% Renewables Targets: In February, Governor Murphy of New Jersey unveiled a suite of six executive policies on climate, two of which are now featured on modelclimatelaws.org as examples of strong Executive Orders on their respective subjects. An **Executive Order on Natural Gas Transition Proceedings**directs the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to plan for the Future of the Natural Gas Utility in New Jersey, with a report due in 18 months. The Order calls for consideration of a “clean heat” standard. It stipulates that such a standard may include accelerated energy efficiency and peak demand reduction targets, enhanced building electrification targets, and leak minimization; minimizing investment in new infrastructure so as to reduce risk of stranded asset costs; the elimination of subsidies that encourage unnecessary investment in natural gas; and electric grid readiness to handle electrification of building heating and cooling; and recommendations for shifting investment funding from natural gas to electric system infrastructure upgrades. New Jersey joins a handful of other states that have commenced similar proceedings to plan for the decline of the use of natural gas .... Also among New Jersey's "six pillars," Governor Murphy unveiled an Executive Order on 100% Clean Energy by 2035, tasking the Board of Public Utilities with the development of an Energy Master Plan that would advance clean energy market mechanisms and other programs in order to provide for 100 percent of the electricity sold in the State to be derived from clean sources of electricity by January 1, 2035. This target expands on a 50% by 2030 goal in the State's Clean Energy Standard.
White House Guidance Memo on Accelerating Permitting: Building on an Action Plan published last summer, in March, the White House released a memo on accelerating the permitting process of renewable energy. The memo leverages permitting provisions from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Acts, and the Inflation Reduction Act. The memo addresses issues such as cross-agency coordination; establishing transparent permitting schedules; consolidated information collection requirements; the development of interagency sector specific teams; and coordination with Tribal Nations.
Virginia Launches Commission on Electric Utility Regulation: In a procedural move, Virginia's Legislature has passed, pending the governor's signature, a bill that would reboot and fully staff its Commission on Electric Utility Regulation. The Commission's members would be tasked with reviewing and explaining proposed energy policies to legislators and the public. As Virginia's part-time legislators have moved briskly in recent years to understand and legislate on immensely complex and financially impactful energy-related topics, the need for expertise beyond industry lobbyists and environmental advocacy organizations has become apparent. Senate bill 1166 aims to put in place the expertise needed at the statehouse level to continue overseeing the energy transition.

Spotlight on Equity: In February, the Clean Energy States Alliance **published a report**reviewing the 100% clean energy plans of the 12 US states, and analyzing equity and environmental justice components of these plans. This paper outlines how the different states view the equity implications of climate impacts, and what they are proposing for mitigation solutions, planning processes, and implementation processes. It identifies common themes and best practices, and presents a selection of relevant case studies and examples.

Tracking Progress on the Inflation Reduction Act: This month, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Environmental Defense Fund published an Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Tracker. The Tracker compiles information about the climate change-related provisions of the 2022 IRA. Actions taken by federal agencies to implement those provisions are recorded in the IRA Tracker on an ongoing basis.

Past Events

In February, members of the LPDD Project joined the Climate XChange's monthly State Climate Policy Network national call as featured presenters in the Toolkit Update series. Our presenters surveyed the LPDD project and its wealth of resources, before offering a few targeted models that state-level policymakers might consider to complement broader decarbonization efforts, touching on subjects like renewables siting, labor standards on renewables projects, utility charges for EVs, and PUC authority to consider climate impacts. A recording of the full call is available here.

Get Involved!

Not sure how to support our work? Check out our Get Involved page to see the many avenues by which lawyers can join us, and get in contact!

This update highlights and summarizes recent additions to the Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization (LPDD) website, which houses actual and model laws addressing the causes of climate change in the United States.

The Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization Model Law Project (LPDD-MLP) is a pro bono effort to draft model laws for use by legislators at the federal, state and local levels to support their efforts to achieve deep reductions in fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. The project is based on recommendations from the groundbreaking book Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Michael Gerrard and John C. Dernbach, eds., 2019). The work is supported by Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Widener University Commonwealth Law School’s Environmental Law and Sustainability Center. Dozens of law firms and individual lawyers are contributing to this pro-bono effort as drafters, peer reviewers or in reaching out to policymakers.

Our website, modelclimatelaws.org, contains over 70 model laws that are a starting place for discussion and collaboration among elected officials, non-profit groups, and the private sector for enabling the U.S. to address climate change by reducing U.S. GHG emissions to zero by 2050 or earlier. The site includes several Top 10 lists for some of the key categories, like electric vehicles, PUC’s, buildings and other topics as a short-hand introduction. In addition, the site references hundreds of other actions that states and other governmental bodies have taken to move towards decarbonization more rapidly. By providing policymakers the tools to achieve deep decarbonization, the Project will help achieve a restructuring of the energy economy, thus alleviating the worst effects of climate change, which are disproportionately suffered by marginalized communities, while providing such positive benefits as economic security, social equity, and environmental justice (EJ).

Please contact us to talk about getting involved in drafting and peer reviewing legislation, to provide suggestions and feedback on the drafts and to talk about how we can help you support your climate change efforts.