State judges told the California Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that its members don’t have a right to pollute, rejecting claims by its attorneys that payments required to release greenhouse gases under a marquee climate program are a kind of tax. The state appeals court ruling could have profound implications for the future of the state’s embattled cap-and-trade program.

Cities should be designed for people, not cars. Urban planners can ensure accessibility through mixed-use development, or by connecting neighborhoods through a rich provision of non-motorized mobility options, like bike paths or high-quality public transportation.

The president’s executive order last week directing the reversal of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, may well cost the U.S. more clean-energy employment than any coal-mining jobs it restores. But even more worrisome may be the lives lost from the continued burning of coal.

With the Trump administration rolling back environmental regulations, the task of developing renewable energy projects over the next four years has largely fallen to states. While many reports have focused on efforts in California, a new paper highlights how states in the Northeast can boost their renewable generation capacity.

Clean energy goals in more than a half-dozen Northeastern states may flounder unless regulators, elected officials and developers do more to mollify political opposition and build rural public support for wind and solar farms, a new analysis has found.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday rolling back Obama-era policies to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The order, called the “Energy Independence Executive Order,” begins a review of former President Barack Obama’s signature program to deal with climate change, the Clean Power Plan, which limited greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

As expected, President Trump issued an executive order today to dismantle the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan — a policy designed to curb carbon emissions from new and existing power plants by accelerating the adoption of lower-polluting energy resources.

Decades of progress on cleaning up our dirty air took a significant hit on Tuesday, along with hopes for a livable future climate, when President Trump issued his Energy Independence Executive Order. Most seriously, the order attacks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean Power Plan, which requires a 32 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from existing power plants by 2030 (compared to 2005 emission rates.)

Proactive states and utilities can manage modernize the grid system without the White House, taking advantage of new technologies and a diverse portfolio of electricity sources. If states work together and get rules right, market forces can deliver a modern electric grid.

The big story everyone is chasing is whether President Trump is a Russian stooge. Wrong. That’s all a smoke screen. Trump is actually a Chinese agent. He is clearly out to make China great again. Just look at the facts.

While Trump and the other regime officials at the signing of his “Energy Independence Executive Order” made a big deal of business unfettered by federal regulations, critics of the executive order had a different take on its outcome.

President Trump campaigned on rolling back restrictions on energy production and revitalizing the coal industry, but in the two months since his inauguration, other issues have taken priority. But now Trump is preparing to follow through on his promises to rewrite the Clean Power Plan and erase requirements that federal officials factor in the impacts of climate change in their decisions.

With the costs of solar continuing to fall, and wind still one of the cheapest sources of new electricity around, California should have no problem hitting its 50 percent clean energy target by 2030. But getting to 100 percent — the goal floated by Senate leader Kevin de León in a bill last month — would be more complicated.

Demand fell for carbon allowances in the California-Quebec cap-and-trade program’s first auction of 2017, continuing a string of uneven results over the last year after auctions sold out for the program’s first three years. Much of explanation for this reversal revolves around legal uncertainty regarding the future of the program, however new quantitative analysis also points to emissions allowance oversupply.

A new analysis of California’s carbon market finds that low demand could continue for the next year and a half, but eventually rebound to the tune of $8 billion through 2020. Based on state data on supply and demand, Chris Busch of advisory firm Energy Innovation said last week that revenues might stay well below their full potential through mid-2018, then rise to 70 to 80 percent through 2020, when the cap ratchets down further.

California, the world’s sixth-largest economy — literally the engine that drives the US economy — also determines the fuel economy of the nation, via the California Waiver, a special deal with the EPA, dating back to the 1970s. Even rolling back the 54.5 mpg requirement is not going to have as much impact, because there is the California Waiver.

President Trump is planning to announce a rollback of fuel efficiency standards today in Detroit, a move endorsed by U.S. auto dealers and auto manufacturers. But going in reverse on fuel efficiency is a terrible deal for American drivers that will cost the economy nearly $400 billion while adding nearly three billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2050.

Across the nation, there’s few topics are hotter with state utility regulators than grid modernization. A new paper by Energy Innovation offers guidelines for designing and evaluating expensive utility modernization proposals.

While wind and solar’s growth creates financial opportunity, they also open the door for new investment and customer savings from power use itself – a resource called demand response (DR). DR is a key market opportunity to save customers money and offer cost-competitive flexibility. 

Wholesale electricity prices are at historic lows, threatening the underlying economics and fate of America’s existing nuclear fleet, just as many facilities are up for re-licensing. This leaves policymakers with tough choices on if — or how — they should intervene to save these plants. What’s a reasonable policymaker to do when considering nuclear power against the overall need for cheap, clean and reliable power?