Law School – Publications

My student Note, titled “Shelby County to Clean Air Act: Evaluating the Constitutionality of California’s Clean Air Act Waiver Under the Equal Sovereignty Doctrine,” was published in the Southern California Law Review in January 2024.

In my Note, I analyze the constitutionality of the Clean Air Act waiver provision, section 209(b)(1), that allows California to promulgate motor vehicle emissions regulations. When choosing a topic, I started off with a broad interest in environmental and energy law. California had recently passed a regulation in August 2022 requiring all new cars sold in the state to be electric by 2035. Upon looking into this further, I found that California’s authority to regulate vehicle emissions comes from a waiver exception in the Clean Air Act, and that there was a pending lawsuit, Ohio v. EPA, challenging this waiver provision. The Clean Air Act provision thus seemed like a timely and interesting topic, and my Note advisor, Professor Craig, helped me narrow down my topic to addressing one issue in the lawsuit, which has implications on California’s ability to remain a leader in motor vehicle emissions and accelerate the nation’s transition towards a clean energy future.

This was probably the biggest research and writing project I’ve ever taken on, and while the writing process felt incredibly long and frustrating at times, I enjoyed the process of diving deeper into a topic that interested me. It was so rewarding to see what started out as a tangled mess of research transform into a coherent work, and getting published was like the icing on the cake! I’m very honored and grateful to the Law Review for this opportunity.