The U.S. Supreme Court Confronts Global Warming: Deconstructing Massachusetts v. USEPA

Abstract: Join a panel of distinguished scholars and expert environmental lawyers for a panel discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court's April 2, 2007, decision in the groundbreaking climate change case, Massachusetts, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .

In Massachusetts , a divided Supreme Court held that California, 11 other states and the nation's major environmental organizations have legal standing to bring this case; that USEPA has the authority under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions associated with climate change; and that USEPA has failed to adequately justify its reasons for declining to do so.

This program will analyze the Court's decision in Massachusetts ; explore its effect on other, important climate change litigation pending in California and throughout the nation; and examine the larger impact of the Massachusetts decision on the current legal, scientific, policy and political debate over global warming.

The Panel:
- Daniel A. Farber , Sho Sato Professor of Law; and Faculty Director, California Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Boalt Hall School of Law
- Anne Joseph O'Connell , Acting Professor of Law, Boalt Hall School of Law
- Ken Alex , Supervising Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice
- Theodore Boutrous , Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
- Richard Frank , Executive Director, California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (Moderator)

For more information on this event, please see the Boalt Hall Department website .

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