Hannah McCrea’s Posts

• Climate law update

  A victory for Katrina victims; a defeat for Alaskan villagers 0

  Posted 3 weeks agoA federal appeals court has reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by victims of Hurricane Katrina seeking damages related to global warming, while a federal district court in California has dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by an Alaskan village allegedly disappearing beneath rising sea levels.

• Why the Second Circuit 'nuisance' case brings good news, and bad (part II) 1

  Posted 1 month, 2 weeks agoIn an earlier post, we explored the background, context, and historical significance of the Second Circuit decision handed down late Monday in Connecticut v. AEP, in which the court ruled that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several major electric utilities for contributing to a “public nuisance” in the form of global warming. In this post, we’ll explore the various next steps and implications of this decision, and explain why it brings even a greater sense of urgency to Congress’s ongoing deliberations of climate legislation.

• Why the Second Circuit “nuisance” case brings good news, and bad (part 1) 0

  Posted 1 month, 2 weeks agoCoverage and analysis is slowly trickling in of the landmark ruling [pdf] handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit late yesterday, in which a 2-judge panel held that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several electric utility companies for creating a “public nuisance” through their emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases.

• If you can’t say something helpful, don’t say anything at all 2

  Posted 1 month, 2 weeks agoThe Washington Post has been editorializing in favor of congressional action to address climate change for more than a decade, but an editorial Monday makes us wonder if they mean it.

• Kennedy thanks megacorporations for their pedagogy during elections

  Supreme Court justices say the darnedest things 3

  Posted 2 months ago

  During the widely-watched Supreme Court re-argument Wednesday morning of Citizens United v. Federal Election Coalition – a case that challenges the constitutionality of over a century of campaign finance laws restricting corporate spending during elections – the Justices' varying opinions on corporations were on full display. While some, notably Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, expressed concern at the enormous influence of "mega-corporations" in politics, others seemed far more sympathetic to corporations' motives.

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