CleanLaw

EP111—Behind the Curtain of the Clean Utility Transition

EELP director of State and Regional Climate Policies Dale Bryk talks with Jamie Van Nostrand, recent chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, the entity that oversees investor-owned electric and gas utilities. Together, they dive into the regulatory frameworks that govern utilities, how those rules drive utility investments, and what that means for consumer energy bills in the transition to clean energy.    Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CleanLaw-EP111-Transcript.pdf

EP110—How Maine Became a Heat Pump Leader

What does it take to electrify a cold-weather state? Maine is leading the nation in home electrification, with more than 150,000 heat pumps installed and counting. Efficiency Maine Trust executive director Michael Stoddard joins EELP’s Abby Husselbee to talk about how Maine’s independent approach, simple program design, and partnership with small businesses are transforming home heating and cutting emissions.

EP109—Cumulative Impacts and the ‘Holy Grail’ of EJ Policy

EELP's Hannah Perls speaks with environmental justice pioneer Charles Lee, former director of EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and principal author of the landmark 1987 report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, and now a visiting scholar at Howard University School of Law, and Sean Moriarty, former deputy commissioner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. They discuss the growing field of cumulative impacts analysis and how states are increasingly using this tool in permitting and other programs to advance meaningful protections for overburdened communities across the country. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/CleanLaw_EP109-Transcript.pdf Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: https://www.ucc.org/what-we-do/justice-local-church-ministries/efam/environmental-justice/environmental-ministries_toxic-waste-20/ New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Environmental Justice Archives: https://dep.nj.gov/ej/archive/#meeting-20210624 EELP's EJ Tracker page on EPA's cumulative impacts efforts: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker/epa-released-interim-framework-for-advancing-consideration-of-cumulative-impacts/ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment report: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/state-of-the-science-and-the-future-of-cumulative-impact-assessment The New School Tishman Environment and Design Center's Cumulative Impacts Dashboard map of EJ laws: https://www.tishmancenter.org/cumulativeimpacts

Ep108—What Science and the Law Say about EPA’s Authority to Regulate GHGs

EELP's Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor, Jody Freeman, speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Solomon Hsiang, Professor of Global Environmental Policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. They speak about EPA's recent proposal to repeal the agency's 2009 Endangerment Finding, and dig into the legal and scientific arguments offered by EPA. They discuss whether the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA already answers some of these legal questions and the state of the science on climate change: what we knew in 2009 when EPA first made its Endangerment Finding, and how our understanding has continued to improve. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CleanLaw_EP108-Transcript.pdf eelp.law.harvard.edu

Ep107—Trump's Move to Kill the Clean Air Act's Climate Authority, Forever

In this special crossover episode of CleanLaw and Shift Key, Heatmap's weekly podcast on decarbonization and the shift away from fossil fuels, EELP’s Founding Director Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Shift Key hosts Robinson Meyer, the Founding Executive Editor of Heatmap News, and Jesse Jenkins, Professor of Energy Systems Engineering at Princeton University.  They discuss the Trump administration's proposed finding that that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants and the potential for EPA to soon surrender its ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories. They also talk about whether Trump gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/CleanLaw_EP107-Transcript.pdf