The Supreme Court ruling Monday overturning the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate a small subset of polluters actually helps the agency, legal experts said, allowing it to focus on the biggest carbon emitters. Read how Tim Profeta thinks eliminating smaller factories allows the EPA to tackle larger culprits in this article from The Hill.

The EPA and large factories have not been one to see eye to eye. Yet, in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, advocates of both sides have left the table content with the results. Read what Tim Profeta has to say about the ruling in this Business Journal article.

In a new ruling, the Supreme Court gingerly tightened the leash around the EPA, overturning the EPA’s ability to regulate a fraction of polluters simply because they emit large amounts of carbon. Many experts, including the Nicholas Institute’s Tim Profeta, viewed the ruling as a positive. Read what Tim Profeta had to say in this article from Mashable.

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld most of the Obama administration’s environmental rules aimed at limiting greenhouse gases from power plants.

The bedrock legal authority underlying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is broadly recognized—by our nation’s highest court, states, power companies, academic experts, and the EPA General Counsel serving during the President George H.W. Bush administration. This Environmental Defense Fund blog post discusses a 2010 research paper by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

In a race where its opponents have a head start of a few hundred years and several billion dollars, Duke has pushed the boundaries of education in an effort to catch up. For the university, one way to keep pace has been pushing the frontiers of a new academic arena: interdisciplinarity. This word is both a direction and a brand, a strategy and a tactic, a vision and a sales pitch. In the fight for tuition money, brand-name faculty and research grants, the University has advanced by promoting itself as a place where traditional boundaries are crossed and new types of collaboration are explored. Duke’s focus on interdisciplinarity has yielded real gains, in terms of both reputation and research. But this move away from a traditional academic structure is also changing the University in ways that may have lasting impacts on students, faculty, and the institution as a whole. This story in the Duke Chronicle mentions the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, June 16, 2014

Media Contact: Erin McKenzie
(919) 613-3652
erin.mckenzie@duke.edu

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this month on whether motor vehicle regulations under the Clean Air Act can also trigger permitting requirements for stationary sources.

In EM Magazine, the Nicholas Institute's Brian Murray and Jonas Monast write that although climate change is a global environmental problem, actions to mitigate it through greenhouse gas controls happen on the ground, which localizes the problem and brings lower levels of government into action. They say that is the case now with greenhouse gas controls in the United States and, while local implementation is necessary, it introduces a great deal of complexity and potential inefficiency . It underscores the need to look beyond local approaches to those more coordinated across levels of government over time.

This article appears in the June 2014 issue of EM Magazine, a publication of the Air & Waste Management Association (A&WMA; www.awma.org). To obtain copies and reprints, please contact A&WMA directly at 1-412-232-3444.

Judging by the howls of protests, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's first limits on heat-trapping gases from power plants could deal a fatal blow to the economies of coal-dependent states like Kentucky and Indiana. But Kentucky and Indiana may actually have a leg up on meeting the newly proposed regulations on greenhouse gases from power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution in the country. Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, comments in The Courier-Journal. 

Broadscale Group, a new model of investment firm working with leading energy corporations to commercialize the industry’s most promising innovations, today announced that James E. Rogers, the former chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy, has become a Senior Advisor to the firm. This iStockAnalyst story highlights Rogers' role on the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Board of Advisors.