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On May 7, 2025, the Interdisciplinary Network on Cumulative Impact Technical Engagement (INCITE) submitted comments to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend its State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) regulations pursuant to New York's Environmental Justice Siting Law. The comments encourage DEC to take several concrete steps to implement the law to meet its mandate to ensure that communities “equitably share responsibilities, burdens, and benefits” of addressing environmental conditions after “an inequitable pattern in the siting of environmental facilities in minority and economically distressed communities, which have borne a disproportionate and inequitable share of such facilities.”

INCITE is an interdisciplinary research network at Columbia which seeks to advance methods of assessing cumulative health, environmental, and pollution burdens in disadvantaged communities through an interdisciplinary approach, led by Professors Michael Gerrard, Sheila Foster, and Diana Hernández.

By Michael B. Gerrard, Ama Ruth Francis, and Hillary Aidun

This report examines how New York law could be harnessed to further equity in the Transportation Climate Initiative, a regional collaboration that seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-invest model that taxes fuel providers and reinvests the proceeds in clean transportation

Read the report Using New York Law to Advance Equity in the Transportation & Climate Initiative Program in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive. 

By Teresa Chan, Michael Burger, Vincent Colatriano, John Echeverria.

In St. Bernard Parish Government v. United States, Louisiana property owners argued that the U.S. government was liable under takings law for flood damage to their properties caused by Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed, however, noting that the government cannot be liable on a takings theory for inaction, and that the government action was not shown to have been the cause of the flooding. On September 6, 2018, the Environmental Law Institute hosted an expert panel to explore this ruling and its potential implications for future litigation in a world of changing climate, extreme weather, and uncertain liability. Below, we present a transcript of the discussion, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.

Read the article Determining Climate Responsibility: Government Liability for Hurricane Katrina? in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

By Michael Burger and Jessica Wentz

Read the report Holding Fossil Fuel Companies Accountable for their Contribution to Climate Change: Where Does the Law Stand? in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

By William Omorogieva

Read the report Prison Preparedness and Legal Obligations To Protect Prisoners During Natural Disasters
in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

By Gabriel Wedy

Read the report Climate Legislation and Litigation in Brazil in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

Note: Brazil plays a major role in the global fight against climate change, especially because of its vast forests. However, the amount of deforestation now occurring is in great dispute. Between August 2014 and July 2015, for example, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest increased by 215% according to Imazon Research Institute. Contrarily, according to the Brazil Government, the increase was only 16%. This paper discusses the role that legislation and litigation are playing, and the roles they may and should play in the future, in combatting deforestation and other factors relevant to climate change in Brazil.

By James Gustave Speth

Presentation given by James Gustave Speth at the 2016 David Sive Memorial Lecture.

Read the presentation Environmental Law: Time to Reboot in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.