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The 2022 Biden Inflation Reduction Act ("IRA") and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ('UIJA"), together providing foran unprecedented 81.7 trillion in spending, were enacted to construct a sustainable legal US. exit ramp from what the Secretary-General of the United Nations recently described as a Vighway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator." This Article analyzes a critical legal missing link in these Acts that is now causing the U. S. economy to do the opposite of its intended climate change mitigation, given: * A necessary eight-fold increase in current renewable electric power, requiring adding the entire amount of existing renewable power again euery eighteen months; * A shortage of rare-earth and critical minerals now required in quantities ten-to-fifteen times greater to produce one unit Of renewable electricity compared to current power; and * How the federal IRA plan is being legally blocked by hundreds of cities in thirty - one states, notwithstanding the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. The Supreme Court in 2022 announced its new "major questions doctrine" in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and applied it to limit presidential discretion regarding matters of electric power technology and climate change. States and cities are now deploying their constitutional authority, supported by Supreme Court decisions, to block a sustainable transition. The final two Sections of this Article design an alternative sustainable legal "bridge" within existing US. late that does not require any congressional action and that is immediately implementable at lower cost than business-as-usual. This decentralized legal bridge also features more efficient use of energy and can be implemented immediately by local governments, state governments, and the federal government. This legal bridge can span the widening gap between these new laws' asynchronous and rapidly increasing electric demand compared to available interconnected zero-carbon renewable power supply until these two become resynchronized. This legal bridge sustainably operates without worsening climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the implications of a legislative omission on U.S. climate change future. Topics include the impact of the decision of two federal circuit courts to stop the supposed federal preemption of state and local resistance to national climate policy, an analysis of the darker climate side of the U.S. separation of powers in the U.S. legal system, and the attempt of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to remedy the failure of the Energy Policy Act (EPA) of 2005.

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Two major pieces of legislation enacted during the Biden Administration – the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – devote hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade to rapidly increase electrification throughout the United States. While this legislation provides substantial investment in infrastructure, it also demands action from different legal regulators. Renewable energy occupies a much larger land footprint than traditional electric power production. And land-use under the Tenth Amendment is within local and state, rather than federal, jurisdiction. To date, U.S. local land use regulation frustrates such national legislation. This article analyzes how these factors may impact the success of the IIJA and IRA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the legal barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives in the U.S. due to the separation of powers within the federalist legal system. It mentions that the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 2021 and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which are significant sustainability legislation, are facing legal barriers imposed by state and local governments, which are part of president Joe Biden's Sustainability Initiatives & Law.

ABSTRACT Fire and ice will forge the future of the world. The constitutional battle in the United States vis-a-vis global warming will determine the future of fire and ice. The [...]

Energy flows underlie all human activity and substantially influence both the economic and the ecological systems locally and regionally, as well as globally. (1) I. LOSING GLOBAL FOCUS AND INTERNATIONAL [...]

I have been given opportunity to talk about the future of energy, and particularly electric energy and its impact on the environment. What a great topic! The way we choose [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE CALIFORNIA PARADIGM: MARKET RESTRUCTURING AND STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE A. Market Design and Response B. Wholesale Litigation C. New Rules: Legislative Recourse 1. No Exit 2. [...]

I. OVERVIEW With state governments at the barricades of federalism, an energy revolution has been launched. Perhaps usurping federal law, thirty-eight states recently mounted a statutory and regulatory charge to [...]