The legal fight over climate change begins in the United States with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. Under the Act, the E.P.A. is required to publish a list of 'stationary sources' of air pollution, of which the most important are power plants.

The queue of activists, interest groups, and ordinary people wringing their hands over what a President Donald Trump might do in office is long, and environmentalists are at the front of the line.

You know how in movies the new president comes in and promises to perform sweeping actions with a stroke of a pen? The Administrative Procedure Act is designed to thwart this sort of maneuver.

Charles C. Mann Quotes