LPDD Newsletter: June 2022 — Model Climate Laws Initiative

LPDD In The News

We're proud to note that LPDD was recently featured in Sierra, the online magazine of the Sierra club. John Dernbach and Joe DiMona write of our project:

For too long there has been no single source of model laws to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Now there is. It’s called the Legal Pathways for Deep Decarbonization in the United States (LPDD) project, an important resource for state and local governments, as well as federal legislators, that want to adopt new laws to slash carbon pollution. This guide can equip policy makers and concerned citizens with legally sound and peer-reviewed model laws and other resources consistent with a whole-economy decarbonization effort. It is, in short, a policy playbook for maintaining a livable planet.

To read the rest of the article, click here!

New External Resources

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

Colorado Clean Air Grant Funding: In June, the Colorado legislature passed SB193, establishing grant programs for replacing diesel trucks ($15M), purchasing electric school buses ($65M), the purchase of E-Bikes ($12M), and a general fund for clean air grants for industrial and manufacturing sector projects ($25M).
Colorado Microgrid Legislation: Also in June, Colorado enacted two microgrid-focused laws, HB1013 and HB1249. HB1013 appropriates $3.5 million to create a Microgrids for Community Resilience Grant Program, under which a cooperative electric association or a municipally owned utility may apply for a grant award to finance microgrid resources. HB1249 requires the Colorado Energy Office to develop a grid resilience and reliability roadmap, including guidance on how microgrids may be used to improve grid resilience and reliability. The roadmap may identify critical facilities and infrastructure as well as high risk communities to prioritize, and provide recommendations regarding potential legislative or administrative changes needed to help facilitate projects.
Maryland Electric School Bus Pilot Program: In May, Maryland enacted HB696, which establishes an Electric School Bus pilot program administered by the Public Service Commission. Under the program, a utility may apply to implement a pilot deploying at least 25 electric buses, with up to $50M in rebates available to participating school systems. Utilities may use bus batteries for Vehicle-to-Grid capabilities without additional compensation to the school system, but only at times when the school system determines that the buses are not needed for student transport. The utility program must select participating school systems based on the locational benefits that the storage batteries may bring to the utility, as well as the health and economic effects on low-income and minority communities.
Arizona Neighborhood Occupantless Electric Vehicle Legislation: In May, Arizona passed SB1333 to regulate neighborhood occupant-less electric vehicles -- defined as self-propelled motor vehicles that: 1) are emission free; 2) have at least four wheels in contact with the ground; and 3) comply with the definition and standards for low-speed vehicles set forth in federal law. SB1333 allows such vehicles to be operated on a highway that has a speed limit of 45 miles per hour or less. It further specifies rules for operating occupant-less electric neighborhood vehicles on highways and certain roadways.
Colorado's Geothermal Energy Legislation: In May, Colorado enacted legislation encouraging the use of geothermal energy by providing it similar treatment to solar energy. The legislation expressly includes geothermal as a renewable resource that utilities may use to achieve the goals of the state's GHG Pollution Reduction Roadmap. Among its other terms, the legislation limits government installation fees, and allows the department of public health to certify geothermal as "pollution control equipment," while allowing geothermal projects also to qualify for county and municipal bonds. The legislation further allows for the creation of community geothermal gardens, similar to the solar gardens that the state already permits.
Colorado's Free Transit During Ozone Season: In May, Colorado also created an ozone season transit grant program, providing grants to offer free transit services for at least 30 days during ozone season. A transit association receiving a grant may use the money to make grants to eligible transit agencies. Incentivizing public transit during such periods may have significant environmental and health co-benefits.
Illinois' Climate Hubs Legislation: In May, Illinois passed legislation establishing a grant program for Climate Works Hubs. These Hubs are intended to recruit, prescreen, and provide pre-apprenticeship training related to opportunities and certifications relevant to clean energy jobs in the construction and building trades; and provide pre-apprentices with stipends not less than the State minimum wage.
Illinois Law Restricting County-Level Siting Restrictions on Wind Power: In May, Illinois also adopted siting legislation for commercial wind facilities that prevents counties from placing restrictions on the installation or use of a commercial wind energy facility, or from establishing siting standards for supporting facilities that preclude development of commercial wind energy. The statute provides hearing requirements and time limits for counties to make their siting decisions. The statute also specifies setback requirements, blade tip height limitations, and sound limitations.
Vermont's Environmental Justice Legislation: In May, Vermont adopted SB148, which defines “environmental justice (EJ) focus populations” and requires State agencies to incorporate environmental justice into their work, rules, and procedures. The legislation creates two new bodies: an EJ Advisory Council and an EJ Interagency Committee. Agencies will hereafter be required to publicly report their spending in EJ populations. The legislation also requires the Agency of Natural Resources to create an EJ mapping tool by January 2025.
Connecticut's SB4: In May 2022, Connecticut passed legislation addressing government EV fleets, charging rights, and distributed solar rights. On government fleets, SB4 sets a requirement that, by 2030, 100% of cars and light-duty vehicles and 30% of buses purchased or leased by the state must be electric. The legislation also authorizes the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to adopt California’s medium- and heavy-duty vehicle standards; establishes a "right to charge" at condominiums and apartment buildings; and prohibits community associations from enforcing rules that effectively prohibit owners from installing solar panels.
New York Building and Appliance Efficiency Legislation: In May, New York passed S9405, creating new appliance efficiency standards for products that are not federally regulated. In addition to directing NYSERDA to consider standards for a long list of specific products, the bill empowers the agency to establish new efficiency standards and promulgate regulations, including for products not listed, making it one of the few states in the country to ensure standards can keep pace with technological advances. The legislation will also allow regulators to set energy codes for new houses and commercial buildings that exceed the IECC and ASHRAE model codes. When assessing whether a building code is cost-effective, regulators will have to consider lifetime building energy savings, rather than looking only at a 10-year window, and include secondary and societal effects, such as carbon emissions. At the time of this writing, the bill is awaiting the governor's signature.
Maine's Integrated Grid Planning Legislation: In May, Maine enacted LD1959, requiring electric utilities to undertake an "integrated grid planning” process every five years, and for those plans to support the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. The law requires utilities to develop multiple demand forecasts, consider the locational value of distributed resources, and analyze grid constraints that have slowed Maine’s ability to interconnect more renewables. In addition, utilities could face penalties for failing to meet service standards set by state regulators.
PJM's Grid of the Future Report: In May, the PJM Interconnection released a roadmap for handling the various changes affecting its system, including the retirement of fossil-fueled generation, growth in renewable energy and storage, and the electrification of the transportation and building sectors. The largest U.S. grid operator intends to use scenario-based transmission planning, conduct targeted reliability studies, and consider ways to reflect extreme weather risks in its analyses.
New York's Crypto Mining Moratorium: In June, New York's legislature passed a crypto mining moratorium. A7389C establishes a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions, and provides that such operations shall be subject to a full generic environmental impact statement review. At the time of this writing, the bill is awaiting the governor's signature.
Boston's Residential Composting Program: In May, Boston opened a new curbside food waste collection program with rolling online enrollment. Food waste, collected with residents' scheduled trash and recycling, will be sent to a private composting site before being made available as compost for city parks, gardens, and schools, or alternatively, to a local waste-to-energy facility. Service begins August 1, 2022. In July, compost bin “starter kits” will be delivered to residents who have enrolled in the program.
Air Watch St. Louis: A new St. Louis Community-based Air Quality Monitoring Program aims to monitor regional air quality in order to fill existing data gaps. The Program aims to promote Environmental Justice (EJ) to achieve health equity. Its work will help to call attention to the burden faced by frontline communities from fossil-fuel facilities. Its website launched in June.
Los Angeles' Digital Twin: Cityzenith, a digital twin platform, is partnering with the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge to help construct a digital twin, or virtual replica, of a section of the city to help make its buildings more sustainable and reduce carbon emissions. Digital twins allow potentially costly decarbonization efforts to be tested virtually before a data-driven decision is made in the real world. The endeavor will initially focus on Los Angeles’ downtown neighborhood, Bunker Hill. The partnership will also help Los Angeles work toward its goal to achieve zero net emissions by 2050 across its building sector, which accounts for 43% of the city’s emissions.
ACEEE Study on Federal Home Efficiency Requirements: In May, ACEEE released a report analyzing the impacts of updating efficiency requirements for new homes receiving federally-backed mortgages or qualifying for federal programs. Congress directed federal agencies to periodically update efficiency criteria for new homes purchased with the support of federally backed mortgages and federal housing programs, but regulators have not updated the criteria for most homes since 2015. Modelers estimate that requiring that new homes receiving federal support meet the latest model building energy codes could yield $5,700 in lifetime net savings for the average household, create 838,000 jobs, and avoid 275 million tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to the carbon from 59 million cars and light trucks for a year.
Colorado Rebuilds Sustainably: In May, Colorado enacted a law to provide financial assistance for rebuilding homes and commercial buildings after a natural disaster with energy efficient heat pumps, energy storage, renewable energy generation, and electric vehicle charging stations. Two separate programs, the Disaster Resilience Rebuilding Program and the Sustainable Rebuilding Program, will help homeowners, rental owners, businesses and government entities rebuild after disasters, while the Sustainable Rebuilding Program will specifically cover costs associated with building high performing, energy efficient, and resilient homes and structures.
Maryland's Energy Storage Grant Program: In May, Maryland enacted a law establishing an Energy Storage System Grant Program to issue grants to individuals and businesses to cover a portion of the costs of energy storage systems installed after January 1, 2025. Grant awards may not exceed: 1) $5,000 for an energy storage system installed on residential property; 2) $150,000 for an energy storage system installed on commercial property; and 3) 30% of the total installed costs of the energy storage system.

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 50 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.