Sustainable Energy Law Notebook

On January 26, 2009, U.S. President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider California’s application to define its own standards on fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from passenger automotive vehicles and trucks (non-commercial purpose). This announcement comes after several years of judicial battles between, among others, the state of California (CA) and the federal government . The state of California was among the front-runners in the enactment of air quality and climate change abatement policies (see CA Climate Change Portal , in particular the 2005 Executive Order on climate change and the CA Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006). In 2002 was passed the Clean Cars Law ( AB1493 ), for which the CA Air Resources Board set the standards in 2004, and asked the EPA for the necessary waiver to implement them in 2005. The standard would ultimately be applicable to vehicles manufactured upon 2009 models and the years thereafter. Three lan...

On January 13, 2009 took place the Senate confirmation hearing nominating Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State for the next administration. At the heart of her action will be: "principles and pragmatism", designed "global solutions", use of "smart power", in "a time of great dangers and great possibilities" and "interdependence". Some interesting points were made by the Senator on energy (1) and environmental (2) matters, which are reported below. 1. Energy related issues - Preferred energy partnerships with Latin America for less dependency - "Canada and Mexico are […] our biggest suppliers of imported energy. […] We're looking forward to working on many issues during the Summit of the Americas in April and taking up the president-elect's call for a new energy partnership around shared technology and new investments in renewable energy." - Ukraine and Russia gas dispute: also an American concern - ...