Brooke Marcus Discusses Impact of Weather Extremes on Environmental Regulation

Brooke Marcus was quoted in the Bloomberg Law article, “U.S. Weather Extremes a ‘Flashing Red Light’ for Water Lawyers” (subscription required). The article examines how climate events–such as high heat, wildfire and extreme drought–could have a significant impact on environmental regulation and courtroom battles.

Commenting for the article, Brooke said, “Recent climate extremes could translate to new rules implementing the National Environmental Policy Act.“ She added, “The Council on Environmental Quality’s expected revisions to NEPA . . . are now more likely to include 'heavy handed instruction' to account for the impacts of climate change.”

Brooke closed by saying, “If there’s more rigid instruction for how agencies should look at climate change when considering a project, then there’s a little bit more of a bright-line test for folks to challenge it if that instruction isn’t met...I think companies will feel heightened pressure to plan for a rare event in ways that weren’t there before—catastrophic wildfire planning, weather event resilience.”