The Environmental Law program is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Giovanna Gismondi as the program’s new Environmental Law Fellow, effective March 1, 2024. We recently caught up with Professor Gismondi to learn more about her background in environmental law and related fields and hear about her plans and goals in her role as the new Environmental Law Fellow.
Continue reading “Professor Giovanna Gismondi Joins Environmental Law Program as New Environmental Law Fellow”Professor Christine Appah-Gyamfi Leads New “Access to Justice, Environmental Justice Clinic”
The Environmental and Energy Law program is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Christine Appah-Gyamfi to lead the newly established “Access to Justice, Environmental Justice Clinic.” We recently caught up with Professor Appah-Gyamfi to learn more about her background in and passion for environmental justice and hear about the proposed goals, scope of work, and anticipated impacts of this exciting new clinic.
The St. Elizabeths Microgrid: The District’s Newest Microgrid Project Strives to Strengthen Community Resilience
By Faren Bartholomew
A new microgrid is potentially coming to Ward 8 in Washington, D.C. In April 2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funded the new St. Elizabeths microgrid, a project that intends to bolster community resilience by maintaining power at several critical locations in Ward 8 in the event of an outage. FEMA awarded several D.C. agencies $20 million to construct the microgrid through its new Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program (BRIC), designed to fund projects that lower the risks and mitigate the impacts of disasters on communities. The BRIC grant program outlines its guiding principles as “supporting communities through capability- and capacity-building; encouraging and enabling innovation; promoting partnerships; enabling large projects; maintaining flexibility; and providing consistency.” In fiscal year 2020, when BRIC selected St. Elizabeths to receive funding, BRIC had $500 million in available program funding. For fiscal year 2021, BRIC’s program funding doubled, with $1 billion in available funding to distribute to selected resiliency projects for states, territories, and tribes.
Continue reading “The St. Elizabeths Microgrid: The District’s Newest Microgrid Project Strives to Strengthen Community Resilience”Understanding the Proposed New Clean Air Act § 111 Rule on Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units
By Johanna Adashek
On May 23, 2023, EPA proposed a new rule that would regulate fossil fuel-fired electric generating units (EGUs). The regulations reflect different regulatory requirements that EPA has crafted using its authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA) § 111, often referred to as New Source Performance Standards or NSPS. This blog post will provide a brief explanation of the NSPS as well as factual background on the kinds of fossil fuel-fired EGUs that are treated differently for purposes of this proposed rule. The post will then discuss the five components of the new rule in the following order: (1) the revised NSPS for greenhouse gas emissions from new fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbine EGUs; (2) the repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule; (3) the emission guidelines for existing fossil fuel-fired steam generating units; (4) the emission guidelines for existing large and frequently used stationary combustion turbine EGUs; and (5) the solicitation of comments on regulating existing smaller and less frequently used fossil fuel-fired combustion turbines.
Continue reading “Understanding the Proposed New Clean Air Act § 111 Rule on Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units”