The Environmental Forum

OPENING ARGUMENT PFAS are potentially harmful chemical substances that can be found throughout industry and commerce; in almost all homes; in the air, water, and soil; in the bodies of over 97 percent of Americans—and they can last forever. How is the U.S. managing them?

CROSS-EXAMINATION The courts have taken over environmental law, sidestepping congressional intent and diminishing the statutes’ strong public-minded values—instead allowing administrative law to play an outsized role in shaping environmental policy.

COVER STORY Joe Biden may have been able to push the most significant climate bill ever through a Democratic Congress in the first two years of his presidency, but he will face much less open legislative ground in the next two.

PROFILE Utility executive Carla Peterman, chief sustainability officer for PG&E, says that the transition to a carbon-free economy needs to be equitable, just, and affordable.

THE DEBATE Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission released a draft rule that would require companies to disclose their Scope 3 emissions if they are “material” to operations. They often encompass the majority of a company’s total GHG emissions, and can include supply chain emissions, employees commuting and working from home, product use emissions, and more. Five experts evaluate opportunities up and down the value chain as corporations look beyond their operations.