The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law
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The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law ® Essay Ann M. Eisenberg, Transitions in Energy Communities Notes Rebecca Ringler, Making a House a Home: Challenging Discriminatory Utility Policies Under the Fair Housing Act Helen Mitsuko Marsh, The Green New Death: A Legislative Framework to Promote and Legalize Green Funerary Alternatives Magdalena Filipiuk Gonzalez, A Breath of Fresh Air: Using the Clean Air Act to Eliminate Air Pollution Hot Spots Neal M. Anderson, The Conventional Energy Transition Subsidy: Structuring a Future for Oil & Gas Companies Volume 12 No. 2 The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law BOARD OF EDITORS VOLUME 12 Helen Mitsuko Marsh Editor-in-Chief Rebecca A. Ringler Jeremy A. Freiman Dina N. Truncali Senior Articles Editor Senior Managing Editor Senior Production Editor Molly C. Jones Andrew F. Costello Molly E. Behan Senior Projects Editor Austin Ray Kabbaz Szabo Senior Notes Editor Articles Editors Laura Martin Tessa Andrew EBA Brief Liaison Tim Scanlan Violet N.D. Edelman Sean O’Neill Devin Patrick O’Connell Michael F. Billotti Lesley Morton Alan Neuhauser Danni L. Shanel EBA Brief Editors Notes Editors Managing Editors ASSOCIATES Alexander Beyrent Hayley F. Heath Saxon F. Nelson Audrey Carroll Sarah A. Husk Matthew Obeid Matthew Clinton Lauren E. Johnstone Benjamin Passey Emily N. Donahoe Marley R. Kimelman Wilma P. Rodriguez James C. Franco Ainsley K. McNerney Katherine E. Sargent Joseph Grossman George A. Menold Annemarie E. Wamsted Guoyao Han Drew Weitzel MEMBERS Hannah Amanpour Aneta Golaszewski Brianna McGraw Anna Arena Chelsea Gutierrez Kalee Odom Sharzad Attaran Tanner Hatch Jack Petr Rurik Asher Baumrin Jacob Hochberger Grace Pezzeminti Tyler Breeden Tyrus Jackson Clara Pomper Evan Brown Stephan Jaksch Emily Schimelpfenig Rachel Christensen Jeremy Jones Robert Schutt Katharine Doerksen Joseph Kennelly Ryan Thompson Anna Ellison Laura Killalea Sally Tieu Rachel Ellison Zachary Lee Erin Wever Daniel Freitas Divina Li Nina Wu Evan Garcia Maggie MacCurdy Lucy Xiong Vikram Gill Eleanor Maloney Qinyu Xu Taylor McDougall Dean Lin Harmon-Walker, Faculty Advisor This issue was completed with editorial assistance from Rachel Ellison and Maggie MacCurdy The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law VOLUME 12 CONTENTS NO. 2 ESSAY Transitions in Energy Communities by Ann M. Eisenberg ...............................................................103 NOTES Making a House a Home: Challenging Discriminatory Utility Policies Under the Fair Housing Act by Rebecca Ringler ................................................................ 113 The Green New Death: A Legislative Framework to Promote and Legalize Green Funerary Alternatives by Helen Mitsuko Marsh ............................................................124 A Breath of Fresh Air: Using the Clean Air Act to Eliminate Air Pollution Hot Spots by Magdalena Filipiuk Gonzalez .....................................................137 The Conventional Energy Transition Subsidy: Structuring a Future for Oil & Gas Companies by Neal M. Anderson ..............................................................150 Cover photo courtesy of The George Washington University Law School. Copyright © 2021 Environmental Law Institute® and The George Washington University Law School. All rights reserved. ELR®, Environmental Law Reporter®, and the Environmental Law Institute® are registered trademarks of the Environmental Law Institute. The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law is published triannually. General inquiries may be sent to The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law; 2028 G Street, NW, Suite LLC-023; Washington, DC 20052. Third-class postage paid at Washington, D.C. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law, 1730 M Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036. ESSAY TRANSITIONS IN ENERGY COMMUNITIES Ann M. Eisenberg* ommunities that have historically relied on the fossil High-volume shale gas extraction has also brought boom- fuel industry for the bulk of their economic activity bust conditions to energy communities both new and old are facing a reckoning.1 Despite political obstacles over the past fifteen years.5 Cand efforts to obfuscate the effects of climate change, This Essay provides a snapshot of energy communities’ stakeholders in the energy sector increasingly acknowl- current efforts to manage these transitions. It is not com- edge that massive efforts to decarbonize the energy grid prehensive, but is rather an attempt at a review of several are coming, or at least, are needed, where those efforts have prominent strategies at a particular moment in this rapidly not already commenced.2 Issues of cost also factor into the evolving area, as well as of emergent theoretical frameworks transition away from fossil fuels, as coal is no longer con- that seek to address important distributional concerns. Part sidered the cheap energy source it once was.3 Meanwhile, I provides an overview of how the energy grid works and new communities face questions of how to manage joining the role communities have in either feeding that grid or the energy grid as solar installations, wind farms, and other transitioning off of it. Part II then discusses the idea of the low-carbon energy sources proliferate around the country.4 “just transition” for fossil fuel communities alongside the idea of “clean energy justice” for communities involved in the green transition. Part III surveys current efforts in the * Associate Professor of Law, University of South Carolina spheres of law, policy, and activism to manage or mitigate School of Law. I am very grateful for India Whaley’s adept transitions, both for communities that are losing their role research assistance for this Essay. as energy producers and for those who are becoming new energy producers. 1. Dustin Bleizeffer,Transition in Coal Country: 2020 Hastens Reckoning, Rock- etMiner.com (Aug. 17, 2020), https://www.rocketminer.com/coronavi- rus/transition-in-coal-country-2020-hastens-reckoning/article_b0fccd5f- I. Communities’ Role in 3ecc-5367-8132-8ddd281eab7a.html [https://perma.cc/4HNS-38KR]. Energy Production 2. Alexandra B. Klass, Expanding the U.S. Electric Transmission and Distri- bution Grid to Meet Deep Decarbonization Goals, 47 ELR 10749, 10749 (Sept. 2017), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3033829; The energy grid is typically understood to include four Sheila McGuire, State Has “Enormous Opportunity” to Transition From Coal, main steps through which electricity moves: (1) power Uinta Cty. Herald (July 24, 2020), https://beta.uintacountyherald.com/ plants generate electricity; (2) transmission lines then move article/state-has-enormous-opportunity-to-transition-from-coal [https:// perma.cc/5XNF-GEYZ]; Hannah Wiseman, Kleinman Ctr. for En- that electricity across regions at high voltages; (3) a distri- ergy Pol’y, Balancing Renewable Energy Goals With Community Interests 1 (2020), https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/wp-content/up- Suttles, Report: Pennsylvania Clean Energy “Major” Job Creator, Times loads/2020/08/KCEP-Balancing-Renewable-Energy-Singles-1.pdf. (Aug. 17, 2020), https://www.timesonline.com/story/news/2020/08/17/ 3. Silvio Marcacci, The Coal Cost Crossover: 74% of US Coal Plants Now More report-reveals-green-energy-growth/3378166001/ [https://perma.cc/3TJL- Expensive Than New Renewables, 86% by 2025, Forbes (Mar. 26, 2019), JRL7]; Ryan P. Thombs, When Democracy Meets Energy Transitions: A Ty- https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2019/03/26/the-coal-cost- pology of Social Power and Energy System Scale, 52 Energy Rsch. & Soc. crossover-74-of-us-coal-plants-now-more-expensive-than-new-renewables- Sci. 159, 160 (2019), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ 86-by-2025/#7dd9ecdc22d9 [https://perma.cc/Q4F8-ZWQP]; Shelley S2214629618307692?via%3Dihub [https://perma.cc/X4G2-UCLA]. Of Welton & Joel Eisen, Clean Energy Justice: Charting an Emerging Agenda, course, some overlap exists between communities transitioning out of fossil 43 Harv. Env’t L. Rev. 307, 330 (2019), https://harvardelr.com/wp-con- fuel energy production and into renewable energy production. See, e.g., Paul tent/uploads/sites/12/2019/08/43.2-Welton-Eisen.pdf [https://perma.cc/ Golias, EPCAMR Receives Grant to Explore Solar Energy on Coal Lands, Citi- G87U-ZV65]; Wiseman, supra note 2. zens’ Voice (Aug. 30, 2020), https://www.citizensvoice.com/news/epcamr- 4. Breffní Lennon et al., Community Acceptability and the Energy Transition: A receives-grant-to-explore-solar-energy-on-coal-lands/article_7a280e35- Citizens’ Perspective, Energy, Sustainability & Soc’y 9, 35 (2019) (not- 7001-536f-a9b4-5377fd054233.html [https://perma.cc/X922-S62E]. But ing that local opposition to renewable energy technology has been higher it is sometimes assumed that “old” energy communities can or should be- than expected); Jeremy G. Weber & Jason Brown, Energy Development’s come the “new” energy communities. This assumption overlooks a variety Impacts on Rural Employment Growth, USDA Econ. Rsch. Serv. (Dec. of important factors. See J. Mijin Cha, A Just Transition: Why Transitioning 16, 2013), https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2013/december/energy- Workers Into a New Clean Energy Economy Should Be at the Center of Climate development-s-impacts-on-rural-employment-growth/ [https://perma.cc/ Change Policies, 29 Fordham Env’t L. Rev. 196, 205 (2017) (discussing TB58-VS3W] (noting that