Michael Gerrard

Major victory: A judge has denied the U.S. Department of Justice's attempt to dismiss NAACP's Clean Air Act lawsuit against Elon Musk’s company, xAI. Earthjustice is proud to represent NAACP to ensure communities can have their day in court and hold polluters accountable.

The Senate's bipartisan permit reform bill would upend the National Environmental Policy Act and also weaken the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. My legal analysis: scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scho...

If you like the heat waves of 2026, you’re going to love the heat waves of 2036, especially if we keep burning fossil fuels at the current rate.

Here again is my analysis of legal issues with wildfire smoke, including perverse effects of the Clean Air Act in inhibiting prescribed burning, an important preventative; efforts to establish state liability for harm from smoke crossing borders (no success); employer responsibilities; many more.

How a Colorado tribe beat the federal solar permit freeze A 170 MW solar and 80 MW battery storage project has broken ground on tribal lands in northwest New Mexico www.pv-magazine.com/2026/07/07/h...

Congestion Pricing and EMS Response Time: Evidence From New York City | NBER www.nber.org/papers/w35414 "congestion pricing reduced passenger vehicle traffic by roughly 21 percent near the boundary and improved total EMS travel times by 63–70 seconds, approximately 5–6 percent. "

This is no joke. Climate change will cause large-scale internal migration in the US, and we need to building much more housing in the north. Here is my legal analysis, soon to appear in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. bit.ly/4p9Dlla

Several states are considering laws to require data centers to provide their own no-emissions power, called the BYONCE (Bring Your Own Clean Energy) laws. EPA is now proposing a rule designed to tailor the permitting processes to speed up project approvals. I call these the Tailor Swift laws.

Sea surface temperatures are already surging to record high levels for this time of year in key El Niño monitoring areas. ➡️ Sign up for our next monthly state of the climate webinar to learn more: climatecentral-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi.... We'll also be talking about the hurricane season outlook.

1985-2023, loss of wetlands added “up to about a $10 billion increase in flood insurance claims (nationwide). In Charleston, along the lower Ashley River, the destruction of upstream wetlands has resulted in the loss of about $20.7 million in flood damage reduction since the 1980s.”

"France passed a single law and instantly unlocked 11 gigawatts of #solarenergy — without using new land. In 2023, France's government mandated solar canopies over all car parks larger than 80 spaces. The scale was enormous: There are 400,000 parking areas across France #ActOnClimate #Renewables

A little over a year ago, HHS paused research activities at a NIAID facility and placed the director on leave. It just so happens that this particular facility focused on Ebola and other infectious diseases... silencingscience.org/actions/hhs-...

As I told the NYT in this article, Trump sees fossil fuels as manly and renewables as woke.

🌟 Congratulations to LDEO climate scientist Maureen Raymo, awarded the prestigious Nemmers Prize in Earth Sciences for pioneering development of hypotheses that explain climate change across Earth’s history and her educational leadership in the Earth system sciences. ➡️ https://bit.ly/3Pa7t21

"If scientific uncertainty was the real reason for disregarding benefits, a good-faith response would be to conduct more research to reduce the uncertainty. Instead, the Trump administration has... attacked the scientific enterprise.” @michaelgerrard.bsky.social www.csldf.org/wp-content/u...

by my tally we are now spending ~$2B to companies to NOT build more energy infrastructure. in the middle of an energy crisis

Want to understand the Supreme Court's latest shadowy shenanigans, and what they mean for climate? Join me on Zoom today at 12:30pm PT! Talking with some of America's' best climate lawyers, including @michaelgerrard.bsky.social. Register here: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/ccg-live-s...

Join me tomorrow at 12:30pm PT to talk climate and SCOTUS, following the bombshell NYT investigation into the "shadow docket." John Roberts really did not want coal plants to shut down! I'll have some of America's best climate lawyers on Zoom. Details: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/ccg-live-t...

American combat deaths in World War I: 54,000. American soldiers killed by flu in World War I: 45,000. They would have given anything for a flu vaccine.

This is the latest loss by the Trump administration in the lawsuits challenging its attempts to block renewable energy projects. The courts are repeatedly finding them to have acted arbitrarily and capriciously.

Letting the perfect be the enemy of the necessary. I strongly support community solar (and rooftop, and ...), but this kind of purism leaves the fossil fuel incumbents in place counting their money while the climate pollution continues to accumulate in the atmosphere

Americans DO care about #ClimateChange! Don’t listen to the partisans who lie about this. 72% of Democrats & 46% of independents “worry a great deal” about climate. And 68% of Democrats & 47% of Independents expect global heating to threaten their way of life NOW or in the future.

"If a very blue state like New York moves backwards on climate change as well, that’s a negative sign for the country. If you can’t do it here, can you do it anywhere?"-- @michaelgerrard.bsky.social [gift link]

Ørsted's 704MW Revolution Wind offshore wind project started delivering power to New England's electric grid yesterday: orsted.com/en/media/new... 🔌💡

The Trump administration has removed the chapter on climate change from the "Reference manual on scientific evidence", an essential handbook for judges as they weigh evidence in court. The response of the American Meteorological Society has just been published (below). And...[1/2]

A coalition of public health and environmental groups has just filed a lawsuit against EPA in the DC Circuit court challenging revocation of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. They are represented by some of the country's leading environmental litigators. aboutblaw.com/bkXr