Media Mentions

The Massachusetts “cottage food law” is out-of-date and needs to be updated, according to some. The Bay State was one of the first states to allow the sale of cottage foods, meaning low-risk homemade food products.  Its current cottage food law was adopted in 2000. In the 21 years since some lawmakers say the state has fallen behind. Some states require cities and towns to develop their own regulations and permit licensing. ... All 50 states permit cottage food sales. The FoodLaw and Policy Clinic at Harvard reports 55 bills were introduced to loosen Cottage Food Laws

The Biden administration is calling on Congress to pass legislation that would strengthen government regulation of stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency that has soared in popularity in the past year. ... Until Congress acts, the working group said that the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a broader collection of financial regulators responsible for spotting risks to the financial system, could coordinate steps to protect investors and oversee stablecoin issuers' reserves. “It would force them into the regulatory perimeter, which is the thing that most people think is appropriate,” said Howell Jackson, a financial regulatory expert at Harvard Law School.

The U.S. oil and gas industry leaks millions of tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere every year. New Environmental Protection Agency rules propose to strengthen requirements for industry to prevent, identify, and repair methane leaks, as science says methane emission reductions will quickly help put the brakes on planetary warming. Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the rules and why tackling methane emissions can make an immediate difference. ... Freeman: Well, it's a big deal, because methane is responsible for about 30% of the global warming we're experiencing. And cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to reduce climate change risks in the near term. Unlike carbon dioxide, its warming power doesn't come from a gradual build up over time. It's almost entirely from recent emissions. So by reducing methane, now, we can reduce warming that would happen in the near term; it has almost an immediate beneficial impact.

Harvard Law School published this video item, entitled “Countdown to Ames 2021 | Meet the Lila A. Fenwick Memorial Team” – below is their description. In anticipation of the 2021 Ames Competition Final Round meet the Lila A. Fenwick Memorial Team, respondents. The event will take place on November 16, 2021. The Ames Competition is one of the most prestigious competitions for appellate brief writing and advocacy in the country. Students participating in the Final Round start the competition in the fall of their 2L year. From there, two teams progress to the Final Round through their strong research abilities and excellent written and oral advocacy. Harvard Law School YouTube Channel

The New York Independent System Operator's (NYISO) ROFR proposal comes as FERC is considering revising its rules governing transmission planning. Utilities want FERC to give them the right to build transmission lines in their footprints instead of opening those projects to a bidding process. ... Competition has generally worked well in New York for public policy transmission projects, according to Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. However, the proposal marks the second recent attempt by New York transmission owners to monopolize transmission that will be built to facilitate the state's clean energy goals, Peskoe said in an email.

Dana Moore likes to get on the road by 3:30 am. It takes roughly five hours to drive from Corpus Christi to Livingston, Texas, and he tries to beat the morning traffic. He watches dawn slowly break, and stops at the same Buc-ee’s convenience store halfway on his journey to grab coffee and gas. By 8:30 he hopes to have reached the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, a prison in Livingston, where he starts his day: ministering to men on Texas’ death row. ... The ruling could potentially impact prisoners’ religious-accommodation claims more generally, adds Joshua C. McDaniel, the director of Harvard Law School’s Religious Freedom Clinic, which collaborated on a brief in support of Ramirez. Numerous organizations spanning the ideological spectrum, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops, have also filed briefs urging the court to grant Ramirez’s request.

When GreenHat Energy collapsed after blowing millions speculating on power prices, it became plain: Energy traders are essentially gambling, and ratepayers back every bet. ... GreenHat traded in a market operated by the largest of the grid keepers, the RTO known as PJM Interconnection LLC. PJM (the name originally stood for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland) directs power from 1,400 generators through 85,100 miles of high-voltage cables in 13 Eastern states and the District of Columbia. Its 65 million electricity consumers have been spared the widespread blackouts that have affected tens of millions of people in Texas and California lately, but they’ve paid for that stability. PJM is supposed to balance the interests of power companies, consumers, and communities, but for years it’s allowed major suppliers such as Exelon, Duke Energy, and American Electric Power to bill ratepayers for high-priced upgrades to sections of the grid where they predominate, according to an assortment of studies. Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, says PJM’s reliable checkoff on new projects allows suppliers to preserve their market dominance and freeze out competition. It’s effectively “a protection racket” for the biggest providers, Peskoe says.

An Israeli cabinet minister’s inability to access the COP26 climate summit in her wheelchair has fueled criticism that the conference is part of the problem on many of the inequalities it was meant to address. Karine Elharrar, Israel’s Energy Minister, uses a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy and was unable to access an entrance at the summit Monday. “It’s sad that the United Nations, which promotes accessibility for people with disabilities, in 2021 doesn’t worry about accessibility at its own events,” Elharrar tweeted. ... “It’s of course unfortunate that [Elharrar] was left out… and it’s right that attention’s being paid to it, but what’s really more of an issue is the way people with disabilities have been left out of the climate change agenda and dialogue,” said Michael Stein, executive director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. “Although we’re all going to suffer, and do suffer, from climate change, right now and in the future, the mortality rate for people with disabilities from natural disasters is as high as four times that of non-disabled persons,” he added.

The New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) is leading a protest asking federal regulators to reject a proposal that would give incumbent utilities a path to building certain transmission upgrades planned by third-party transmission developers. The state grid operator's right of first refusal (ROFR) proposal, which could give utilities a new income stream, would lead to unfair rate hikes, would fail to balance consumer and shareholder interests, and thwart the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's efforts to inject competition into the transmission process, the NYPSC said in a Tuesday filing at the commission. ... Competition has generally worked well in New York for public policy transmission projects, according to Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. ... "New York's policies are headed in the same direction, and they all point to a significant influx of clean energy over the next couple of decades," Peskoe said. "[The utilities] are trying to effectively tax clean energy policies by attempting to take a cut of the profits without any competition."

Lawmakers who want to make it easier for home cooks to sell foods like jam, bread, cookies and pickled vegetables said the state’s current system regulating these so-called “cottage foods” is overly burdensome for many would-be entrepreneurs. ... Regina Paparo of the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School told the committee that Cambridge, like Boston, began allowing the sale of cottage food this year, and Worcester has not created a permit process, amounting to an “effective ban” on products from home kitchens. “Many home cooks are from groups disproportionately affected by COVID-19, including women, people of color, immigrants and restaurant industry workers who have suffered high rates of unemployment,” she said. “This bill would contribute to the Commonwealth’s equitable recovery from the pandemic, providing unparalleled economic opportunity to start and run flexible, small businesses from home.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Who created the Constitution we have today? As a law professor, I’ve always thought the best answer was “the framers”: James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and the other delegates who attended the Philadelphia convention in the summer of 1787. The Constitution they drafted has since been amended many times, of course, sometimes in profound ways. But the document, I’ve long reasoned, has also exhibited a fundamental continuity. We’ve always had one Constitution. I no longer think this conventional understanding is correct. Over the course of several years of research and writing, I’ve come to the conclusion that the true maker of the Constitution we have today is not one of the founders at all. It’s Abraham Lincoln.

Large companies’ awards of millions in executive bonuses on the eve of bankruptcy are drawing renewed congressional focus. Bankrupt companies need court approval to award executive bonuses. But there isn’t a similar restriction on pre-bankruptcy bonuses, a loophole that’s been increasingly used by some big-name companies, such as Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. ... In the wake of public outcry over bonuses awarded to Enron Corp. and WorldCom senior managers, Congress in 2005 amended the bankruptcy code to require court permission before a bankrupt company could offer such compensation. “The amendment was an emotional response and never calibrated to deal with the real problem,” said Jared Ellias, a bankruptcy law professor at the University of California, Hastings and visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Ashley Nunes, Labor and Worklife Program fellow: The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cutting-edge technologies. From contactless cashiers to welding drones to “chow bots” — machines that serve up salads on demand — automation is fundamentally transforming, rather than merely touching, every aspect of daily life. This prospect may well please consumers. Forsaking human folly for algorithmic (and mechanistic) perfection means better, cheaper, and faster service. But what should workers — who once provided these services — expect? Can they also benefit from technological progress? If so, how?

The final proposal for Wisconsin’s next political maps from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ redistricting commission would narrow, but still maintain, Republican legislative and congressional majorities in the state. ... Ruth Greenwood, director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, said she doesn’t believe the commission’s maps are fair for Democratic voters, adding that predicted efficiency gaps “show a large and durable skew in favor of Republican voters” for both the Assembly and Senate map proposals. PlanScore, a program that predicts precinct-level votes for districts based on past election results and U.S. Census data led by the Campaign Legal Center, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for nonpartisan maps, found that under the commission’s proposal Democratic candidates would take 35% of state Senate seats and 39% of Assembly seats with a near 50-50 Democratic and Republican vote share. Greenwood said this may be due to the commission’s prioritization of compactness over partisan fairness. Greenwood noted that the first priority Evers listed in his original executive order creating the commission was that maps shall, whenever possible, be “free from partisan bias and partisan advantage.” “That is not reflected in the resulting plans,” Greenwood said. Greenwood said last month Republicans’ proposal “essentially bakes in almost the same level of partisan advantage” as current districts.

Detroit could be the latest big city to decriminalize "magic mushrooms" and other psychedelics drugs as residents take to the polls Tuesday. Voters will be asked under proposal E: "Shall the voters of the City of Detroit adopt an ordinance to the 2019 Detroit City Code that would decriminalize to the fullest extent permitted under Michigan law the personal possession and therapeutic use of Entheogenic Plants by adults and make the personal possession and therapeutic use of Entheogenic Plants by adults the city's lowest law-enforcement priority?" ... Harvard Law School launched the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation this summer to examine the legal framework around psychedelic research. "Preliminary research suggests that psychedelics could hold major benefits for people experiencing trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder," Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen said in a statement. "By analyzing social, legal, and political barriers to access in this context, we hope to advance the understanding of their potential impact as therapeutics."

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a sweeping new abortion law in Texas on Monday. The law, which went into effect in September, bans abortions after six weeks and relies on private-citizens-turned-bounty-hunters to enforce the law at $10,000 a head. The court’s decision not to block enforcement of the law before it went into effect places the legitimacy of the high court in question. ... However, this is not the first time, nor is it a rare moment when the judiciary stood against democracy and civil rights. ... “First, as a matter of historical practice, the court has wielded an antidemocratic influence on American law, one that has undermined federal attempts to eliminate hierarchies of race, wealth and status,” Nikolas Bowie, an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, testified to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States that was formed last spring. “Second, as a matter of political theory, the court’s exercise of judicial review undermines the value that distinguishes democracy as an ideal form of government: its pursuit of political equality.” Bowie noted that Alexis de Tocqueville identified jurists as the American aristocracy, a privileged class with lifetime tenure who, as “the priests of Egypt,” regarded themselves as “the sole interpreter of an occult science” of the Constitution. He also pointed out that the Supreme Court has consistently protected the wealthy, invalidated federal laws enacted to increase political equality and has shown deference to Congress when it passed laws that harmed “racial, religious or ideological minorities” such as Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, those who live in U.S. territories, Muslim refugees and others.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: The University of Florida struck a blow against academic freedom last week by prohibiting three professors from testifying in a lawsuit claiming the state’s new election laws are discriminatory. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the university’s action is a violation of the professors’ free speech rights. A court should find the decision unlawful, but might not. There’s a difference between academic freedom and free speech. As explained by former Yale Law School Dean Robert Post in a classic work, these two freedoms are based on different principles, and involve freedom from different kinds of constraints.

The panel of judges hearing a lawsuit from which all the judges on a circuit have recused themselves was revealed Monday, after the lawyers behind the case requested to know which judges would preside over the appeal. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is recused from the lawsuit filed by “Jane Roe,” a former federal public defender who is alleging harassment while in her job and mounting a challenge to the way the federal judiciary handles misconduct complaints. The complaint names the circuit, as well as its chief judge and judicial council. Federal public defenders fall under the scope of the federal judiciary. ... The Fourth Circuit typically does not reveal the panel of judges hearing a case until the morning of arguments. Cooper Strickland and Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, who are representing Roe in the case, on Oct. 29 filed a motion to publicly post the judges presiding in the case, noting that orders had been issued but it was unclear who was behind those orders.

Watch: On Monday's edition of CNN's “OutFront,” Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe weighed in on Supreme Court arguments over the Texas abortion ban.

In addition to the big, juicy turkey on the table, there’s also an elephant lurking in the room this Thanksgiving: the vaccination status of your guests. It’s a tricky thing to talk about. Do you ask your aunt if she received the Covid vaccine after she R.S.V.P.s? What if she says no? Do you endure another scaled-back celebration, like last year? Or should you serve up a bunch of precautions? ... Start by calling your unvaccinated family members and soliciting their ideas on how to gather safely, said Daniel L. Shapiro, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and the author of “Negotiating the Nonnegotiable: How to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts.” Ask: “What’s your advice on how we can make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable when we get together?” he suggested. Then come up with some ideas. Perhaps you suggest that there should be mandatory testing right before dinner, or that you should gather outside, near a patio heater.

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear appeals from Republican-led states and coal companies asking it to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. “This is the equivalent of an earthquake around the country for those who care deeply about the climate issue,” said Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard. The court’s decision to take the case came days before President Biden is to attend a global climate summit in Scotland where he seeks to reassure other nations that the United States will continue to pursue aggressive policies to combat global warming.