How the Paris Climate Agreement Super-Charges the Clean Air Act - by Joe Romm

A group of leading law professors who work on climate have published a game-changing new legal analysis.  It finds that the Paris climate agreement unlocks a previously unused Clean Air Act provision that enables broad authority to use market-based mechanisms to reduce carbon pollution nationwide.

Last December in Paris, the U.S. committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.  That target appears more than achievable given a variety of existing policies, including congressionally-approved incentives for renewable energy, national fuel economy standards, and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which requires states to develop plans to cut carbon pollution and existing power plants.

Some commentators in the U.S. have, however, predicted that ongoing progress in the U.S. — especially our ability to keep ratcheting down our greenhouse gas target over time — will be stymied by a lack of sufficient administrative authority combined with a Congress that refuses to take climate change seriously.  Indeed, last month, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “To Achieve Paris Climate Goals, U.S. Will Need New Laws.”

That headline is wrong, according to the new legal analysis by a collection of leading legal scholars.  Their analysis, “Legal Pathways to Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Section 115 of the Clean Air Act,” finds that rather than setting an unattainable goal that needs new laws from Congress, the Paris agreement “provides a strong basis for invoking a powerful tool available” today under the federal Clean Air Act.

Specifically, the unused “International Air Pollution” provisions of the Clean Air Act, which are contained in Section 115 of the act, have been unlocked by the Paris Agreement, providing the EPA the authority to effectively and efficiently call for needed pollution reductions.

Michael Gerrard, a Professor at Columbia Law School and a lead author of the report, told Climate Progress that climate centers at Columbia, NYU and UCLA law schools had started to look at Section 115 with interest and decided a deeper dive was warranted given its promising nature.

“The deeper we dove,” said Gerrard, “the more confident we became that this provision gives the administration a solid basis for action on climate change across many sectors of the economy.  We asked colleagues in several other leading law schools to review our conclusions and they concurred.”

Read more at How the Paris Climate Agreement Super-Charges the Clean Air Act