Texas energy and environmental lawyers say the Obama administration’s climate change proposals, unveiled earlier this month, offer a lot of fodder for client discussions, and they expect future lawsuits to target the federal government’s new plans. The lawyers all expect that legal challenges and state lawmakers’ responses will clarify the proposals’ ultimate consequences. Most predict that, under all scenarios, counsel likely will see more work.
“The breadth of things they are doing is broad. So there are going to be all kinds of challenges,” said James Braddock, counsel at Haynes and Boone in Austin and a former general counsel at the Texas Air Control Board, a predecessor agency to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
