Environmental policy, explained through legal machinery.
CleanLaw follows the machinery behind environmental and energy decisions. Its episodes turn statutes, agency proceedings, court rulings, and state programs into structured conversations about what government power can actually do.
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CleanLaw is an interview-driven legal and policy show focused on the systems that govern environmental protection, climate action, and energy transition. It moves deliberately. Rather than treating public policy as a contest of slogans, the show asks how statutes work, which agencies have authority, where courts enter the picture, and what happens when a procedural step is skipped or stretched. Recent episodes have examined an unusual national security exemption under the Endangered Species Act, the legal consequences of U.S. withdrawal from the UNFCCC, and the regulatory mechanics behind electric and gas utilities. The show also spends real time on state-level implementation. Maine’s heat pump programs, Oregon’s clean fuel standards, cumulative impacts analysis in permitting, and interstate ozone rules all appear as concrete examples of law meeting infrastructure, budgets, health, and political constraint. CleanLaw’s pace is measured, but it is not abstract. A question about a treaty resolution can become a discussion of future climate policy. A question about transmission planning can become a look at regional coordination, utility incentives, and consumer costs. A question about fuel standards can turn into credit markets, biodiesel blends, electric vehicles, and program design. The interviews often feature people with direct experience inside the relevant systems. Their explanations tend to be long, structured, and careful. That is the point. CleanLaw gives procedural detail enough room to become intelligible. It defines terms, marks timelines, and distinguishes legal authority from policy preference. The result is useful for listeners who already care about climate and environmental issues but want a firmer grasp of the governing machinery. It is especially good at showing how federal and state action interact. Courts, agencies, utilities, international agreements, and public health programs are treated as connected parts of the same policy field. The show can be technical. It assumes patience. In return, it offers a grounded view of how environmental and energy law is made, challenged, defended, and revised.
Made for: For policy professionals, lawyers, students, advocates, journalists, and climate-curious listeners who want procedural clarity behind environmental and energy decisions. It suits audiences comfortable with statutes, agencies, litigation, and regulatory design.
What sets it apart: CleanLaw stands out by staying close to legal authority and implementation detail. It turns complex environmental and energy disputes into careful, source-grounded conversations about process, power, and consequence.
The Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program influences policy discussions about environmental, climate, and energy issues. EELP offers robust legal analysis and practical governance solutions that will move these discussions forward.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
CleanLaw makes environmental government legible by tracing how statutes, agencies, courts, and regulated industries shape policy in practice.
CleanLaw turns environmental governance into a close study of authority, procedure, and institutional consequence. Conversations led by Jody Freeman, Erica Kranz, Hannah Oaks, and other members of Harvard Law School's Environmental and Energy Law Program pair legal practitioners…
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A rare procedural deep dive into an extraordinary Endangered Species Act maneuver.
This episode treats a hard legal edge case as an institutional problem: how a never-before-used national security exemption was used to exempt oil and gas exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico from Endangered Species Act compliance.
A careful look at withdrawal, reentry, and the legal cost of treating climate commitments as temporary.
Clean Law takes up the recent U.S. announcement to withdraw from the UNFCCC and, with Jody Freeman and Sue Biniaz, follows the legal stakes from there: the convention's role, the domestic and international meaning of leaving, and what the earlier withdrawal from the Paris…
A careful look at the legal and technical machinery behind interstate ozone control.
CleanLaw frames EPA's Good Neighbor Plan as a clear look at how interstate ozone control works, from the acronyms to the timing rules and the limits on what EPA can require from upwind states and power plants.
A clear look at Oregon's Clean Fuels Program as a regulatory system, not just a surcharge.
This segment treats Oregon's Clean Fuels Program as a working regulatory framework, with credits, compliance duties, and the economics of transportation fuels kept in clear view.
Transmission policy, not just generation, is where regulation decides what the grid can do.
Clean Law looks at electric transmission as a legal and engineering problem at the same time. Hannah Oaks and Ari Peskoe talk through current disputes over transmission law, including FERC Order 1000, regional planning, and interregional connections.
Corporate sustainability, made operational.
Erica Kranz talks with Andy Mergen about a recent decision to exempt oil and gas exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act.
Jody Freeman speaks with Sue Biniaz about the United States' announced withdrawal from the UNFCCC.
Jamie Van Nostren says Massachusetts gas bills flipped from roughly 70% commodity costs to 70% delivery costs as utilities invested in pipe replacement.
Maine passed 150,000 heat-pump installations after Efficiency Maine shifted from single-room units toward whole-home primary heating.
Charles Lee traces cumulative impacts to environmental justice’s focus on communities’ lived experience and cites EPA’s advisory council raising the issue in 1993.
Carrie Jenks and Hannah Oaks-Dobie walk through EPA's Good Neighbor Plan.
Abbey Hussleby speaks with Corianne Wind about Oregon's clean fuels program.
Clean Law centers on electricity transmission and the legal machinery behind it.
Laura Yankwich interviews GE's Chief Sustainability Officer Roger Martella about the company's net zero commitments and sustainability strategies across aviation, healthcare, and energy sectors.
A discussion about the South Fork Wind Project's approval and its impacts on fisheries, featuring NOAA policy analyst Doug Christel.