October 2025 Newsletter 2
Last week, we re-launched the newsletter for the Model Climate Laws Initiative, formerly known as the Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization Project.
This week, we are highlighting our priorities and ongoing work, new resources we’ve added to our database, and ways you can get involved in our efforts.
Going forward, expect a regular monthly communication from us that summarizes new model laws and other resources developed by the Initiative, as well as key climate policy developments in state and local governments across the country.
THE INITIATIVE'S PRIORITIES
With the developments mentioned last week – our exciting new partnership with EANY, our new Executive Director coming on board, and the rapid and extensive changes to climate-related policy coming from the federal Administration – the Initiative will continue to focus on offering policymakers high quality model climate legislation. We will emphasize state and local action and we will work to broaden our mission to include laws addressing climate adaptation and resilience. Our efforts will prioritize actions that help state and local governments respond to federal actions, address affordability and have other economic benefits in addition to addressing climate change, and have the greatest chances of being successfully implemented. Please visit our website for additional details about the Initiative’s priorities at this critical time.
THE INITIATIVE'S ONGOING WORK
We are working to grow our library of model laws, examples of proposed and enacted legislation, and other legal resources. We continue to make our resources freely available on our website. The Initiative can also help to tailor our models to meet the legal or political needs of individual jurisdictions. Finally, we are expanding our partnerships with organizations across the country, so that our resources can be utilized by lawmakers and others in as many states and municipalities as possible.
NEW RESOURCES IN THE DATABASE
As we embark on this exciting new phase with the Model Climate Laws Initiative, we are continually adding new resources to the database on our website. This includes new pieces of model legislation drafted by the Initiative and its network of contributing pro bono attorneys, as well as resources developed by partner organizations. Here are a few we recently added to our database:
Model Law for Methane Emissions from Wastewater Treatment
Through the efforts of some of our expert legal drafters and peer reviewers, we have published a new model law for addressing methane emissions from wastewater treatment facilities.We thank our contributors for providing their services and expertise in developing and reviewing this model law:
Authors:
Cynthia J. Cho, Attorney
Kristina Alexander, Endowed Chair for Marine Policy & Law, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
Peer Reviewers:
Sarah Deslauriers, Director of Air, Climate and Energy Programs, California Association of Sanitation Agencies
Nadia B. Ahmad, Professor of Law, Barry University School of Law
Model Municipal Ordinance for Community Composting
The Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) developed a model municipal ordinance to advance community composting. Over 30 percent of the food supply in the United States goes uneaten, and most of it ends up in landfills or incinerators. This contributes to climate change, in addition to a host of other financial, social, and environmental costs.
Additional resources associated with this model ordinance are available here. This model is part of a broader collaboration between ELI and NRDC on model municipal governance tools on food waste reduction, which are intended to help municipalities to take action to reduce food waste.
Model Resolutions for Food Waste Reduction Policies
Relatedly, the ELI/NRDC collaboration recently released model resolutions to accompany their existing model municipal policies on food waste reduction. Like other models, the resolutions can be adopted in whole or part by city councils or other municipal legislative bodies.
The resolutions express municipal support for a range of food waste reduction measures, which can help to reduce this sector’s substantial contribution to climate change. Model resolutions can serve as a first step toward the eventual enactment of additional policies, such as an ordinance, executive order, or other policy that establishes permanent legal requirements for addressing food waste.
GET INVOLVED!
There are a variety of ways you can get involved in our efforts. For example, you can contact us to suggest or request specific policies that should be translated into model legislative text. You can volunteer to help draft new model laws for our database, or to tailor models to the unique legal or political landscape of a given jurisdiction. You can also assist us by identifying enacted or proposed laws, or other legal resources, that we should add to our public database. Finally, you may want to assist with our state outreach efforts or help us connect with existing networks for potential collaboration.
If you are interested in getting involved in any of these ways – or others – please indicate your interest here or by using the QR code below.
If you would like to sign up to receive our regular updates, please click here.
About the Model Climate Laws Initiative
The Model Climate Laws Initiative is a joint project of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School and Environmental Advocates NY.
Formerly known as the Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization Model Law Project, the Initiative works to advance state- and local-level climate policy nationwide. The project’s goal is to make it easier to turn policies – including those aimed at reducing emissions as well as efforts that increase resilience to the changing climate – into effective laws. The Initiative does this by providing draft legislation, legal analysis, implementation support, and other legal tools for lawmakers, advocates, and other stakeholders.
Through a network of pro bono attorneys and other volunteers, the Initiative publishes model laws and legal resources for free on itspublicly available database. To date, this has resulted in over 80 model laws and more than 2,500 other legal resources – and growing. These materials serve as a starting place for legislators and may be tailored to meet the legal or political needs of individual jurisdictions.
As announced in a July 2025press release, the Initiative is expanding its work through additional model legislation, increased outreach to state lawmakers, and enhanced drafting focused on creating legally robust and implementable laws.
The genesis of the project was the groundbreaking book Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Michael Gerrard and John C. Dernbach, eds., 2019). The book provided over 1,500 legal and policy recommendations, many of which have now been translated into legislative text through the Initiative’s efforts.