Great Lakes Air

Making the cut

“I was almost waiting, every time I walked by (BG manager Brady Williams’) office, for him to call me in and talk to me - telling me things weren’t working out and I was going to be sent down to get more work,” Jensen said. “That meeting never happened and I’m glad that things have worked out the way they have.” “Since then I’ve been throwing the crap out of it,” Jensen said. “(My last start) I probably threw 20-25 of them. I felt real confident in it. I’m starting to throw it to righties, too. It’s a pitch that has really paid off for me now. It puts a lot of confidence in my back pocket. I really enjoy throwing it.” “This is a lefty-dominated league,” Jensen said. “You’re going to face four, five or six lefties in every lineup. It’s not like college where you face all righties and can spin some (breaking balls) in there. I can’t do that against lefties because it’s going to end up right in their wheelhouse. The cutter either comes in at their hands and jams them or they will swing over the top of it.” “I don’t have a special thing that I do,” Jensen said. “I’d like to say I bear down a little more. Those are my earned runs out there and I don’t want my ERA to go up. It’s like R.C. says, ‘Every pitch, one pitch at a time. You can only control one thing.’ He says let them hit, let our infielders and outfielders make the plays. (In that last start) I got two strikeouts and a fly out to left. That boosts your confidence. Once you get out of a bases-loaded jam, you feel like nothing can stop you.

Great Lakes Law: U.S. Supreme Court holds that the Clean Air Act ...

 (8-0, With Justice Sotomayer recused) holding that the Clean Air Act displaces federal common law with regard to nuisance claims for alleged injuries from greenhouse gas emissions. While any decision from the nation’s highest court on our most complex and challenging environmental issue is worth noting, this ruling was expected and doesn’t really change the legal or political landscape regarding climate change.

For background on the case, see this previous guest post on climate change torts . Tort claims (involving harm to property from pollution) are typically brought under state law, and the Supreme Court made clear that its decision does not apply to such state law claims. The AEP decision simply holds that federal common law claims are “displaced” by the federal Clean Air Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled applies to greenhouse gas emissions. The Court also, to some extent, rejected the polluters’ legal arguments regarding standing and political question, making clear that federal courts have jurisdiction to hear these cases.

In the big picture of climate change law, this case is really not a big deal. Climate change won’t be solved with tort law, and federal common law has always been a tenuous legal doctrine. The decision does not address the merits of the climate change debate; it simply says that Congress and the administrative agencies (notably the U.S. EPA) have left no role for federal common law in deciding liability rules for greenhouse gas emissions. While many of us are frustrated by the lack of action on this issue in Congress and the EPA, a comprehensive solution to climate change can only come from those branches of the federal government.