Imagine a regulation that takes years to draft, survives legal challenge, clears the legislature, and finally takes effect. Then a new administration arrives. Or a court finds a technical flaw in the enforcement language. Or an industry discovers a loophole no one anticipated. Suddenly, a policy designed to protect air quality or reduce carbon emissions unravels before it produces a single measurable outcome.
This is not a hypothetical. It is the recurring failure mode of environmental governance, and it is something Will Brieger has spent decades trying to prevent. A California-based attorney and advocate with experience spanning all three branches of state government, Brieger has worked as an environmental prosecutor, an advisor to the California Air Resources Board, and a legislative advocate for climate and clean energy policy. That breadth of institutional experience shapes everything about how he thinks environmental law should be designed and enforced.
His central argument is straightforward: effective environmental governance does not begin when a regulation takes effect. It begins when the first line of policy language is drafted.
Why Enforceable Language Is the Foundation of Environmental Policy Design
Most public debates about climate regulation focus on ambition. How steep should the emissions reduction targets be? How quickly should they take effect? Those are legitimate questions. But Brieger points to a less visible problem that undermines even the most ambitious goals: regulations that are drafted without enforcement in mind.
“In fairness to all parties,” Brieger explained, “regulations need to be as simple and clearly designed as possible.” That principle sounds obvious. In practice, it is rarely honored.
California’s economy is large, diverse, and constantly changing. Writing a climate policy that applies consistently across hundreds of regulated industries, thousands of individual businesses, and multiple market conditions produces complexity almost by default. The challenge is not eliminating complexity. It is managing it through clear legal language, well-defined compliance pathways, and enforcement mechanisms that are designed at the same time as the policy itself, not added as an afterthought.
Brieger spent years working on the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program at CARB, advising the team through a major regulatory revision and helping draft the updated rules. That experience reinforced his view that regulatory drafting is not a clerical function. It is a legal and policy discipline that requires practitioners who understand how regulated parties actually operate and how enforcement agencies actually pursue violations.
Will Brieger on the Science-Policy Connection That Gives Regulations Staying Power
Regulations that lack scientific grounding tend not to survive. Courts scrutinize the evidentiary basis of agency decisions. Political opponents attack rules that cannot be defended with credible data. And businesses that believe a regulation is built on shaky science are far more likely to resist it than comply.
CARB has largely avoided this trap, and Brieger credits a commitment that predates his arrival at the agency. “CARB has continuously followed and funded scientific research that allows it to design effective emission reduction policies,” he noted. That research foundation gives California’s climate regulations a durability that many other jurisdictions struggle to match.
Brieger’s own exposure to the science-policy relationship runs deep. When he helped research and draft the complaint in what he describes as the nation’s first climate lawsuit, the experience changed his career. “That case introduced me to leading lawyers in several states, and the leading atmospheric scientists, statisticians and climate modelers in the world,” he recalled. “I was fired from a cannon into the fascinating intersection of science, law, policy, politics and economics.”
That intersection is exactly where durable environmental governance is built. Rules grounded in peer-reviewed science, developed in consultation with researchers who can defend their findings in court, are rules that tend to hold up over time regardless of who holds political office.
Building Regulations That Businesses Can Actually Follow
There is a version of environmental enforcement that treats regulated industries primarily as adversaries. Brieger rejects it. Not because he is soft on compliance, but because he understands that deterrence only works when it is paired with clarity.
“Enforcement needs to be paired with compliance assistance,” he said. “It would be unjust to harshly punish parties who simply did not understand how to comply.”
That perspective does not mean penalties are optional. Brieger is direct about the logic of deterrence. If only half of violators are caught and the only consequence is returning what they gained, rational actors will calculate that violation pays. The penalty has to exceed the benefit. He pointed to cases involving the LCFS program where parties who misrepresented their status to earn environmental credits were required not only to return those credits but to pay a significant penalty for each one improperly obtained.
The goal is a regulatory environment where the rules are clear, the compliance pathways are practical, and the consequences for bad-faith violations are meaningful. That balance does not happen by accident. It requires intentional design from the earliest stages of rulemaking.
Key principles Brieger applies to regulatory design include:
- Setting performance standards without dictating exactly how businesses must achieve them
- Building flexibility into market-based programs while enforcing market rules strictly
- Providing compliance assistance before relying on enforcement as a first response
- Calibrating penalties to deter noncompliance rather than simply recover ill-gotten gains
How Experience Across All Three Branches Sharpens Environmental Governance
One of the recurring failures in environmental policy is that the people who write regulations often have limited experience with how those regulations will be enforced. And the people who enforce them often had no role in designing them. The result is a structural gap between policy intent and practical implementation.
Brieger’s career has put him on both sides of that gap repeatedly. He worked as a Deputy Attorney General representing CARB before he joined the agency. He has worked in courts, in regulatory agencies, and in legislative settings. That experience produced a direct conclusion: “One cannot expect to change government policies without knowing how the government actually works.”
The legislative process, in particular, is something he describes as endlessly fascinating. Drafting enforcement provisions in climate regulations, advising program staff through rule revisions, and working at the intersection of science and law all require fluency in the logic of each branch. A provision that makes sense to a legislator may create an enforcement nightmare for a prosecutor. A penalty structure that satisfies a regulatory agency may not survive judicial review. Experienced legal practitioners who understand all three environments are rare. Their role in translating policy goals into workable governance is, in Brieger’s view, essential.
Will Brieger on the Conditions That Make Climate Regulation Durable
Environmental law has a long memory. Regulations crafted in one political era must often survive the next several. Brieger thinks carefully about what makes climate governance resilient over time, and he points to a short list of structural conditions:
- Scientific grounding that can withstand legal and political challenge
- Enforcement provisions drafted alongside the policy, not appended later
- Compliance pathways that are practical for the regulated community
- Flexibility mechanisms, like market-based programs, that allow businesses to innovate toward outcomes
- Strict enforcement of market rules to protect all participants from bad actors
California has managed to build much of this into its climate program over time. The cap-and-trade system, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and the vehicle emissions standards that have repeatedly influenced federal policy all reflect an institutional approach that Brieger sees as replicable. “CARB learned from other emissions trading programs around the world,” he noted, pointing to how the agency incorporated lessons from international experience into its own regulatory design.
That kind of institutional learning is itself a governance asset. Agencies that study what works elsewhere, apply it carefully, and adjust based on results build a track record that earns public and judicial trust over time.
The Argument That Policy Goals Are Achievable Right Now
Brieger does not think the obstacles to effective climate governance are primarily technical. The science is settled enough. The policy tools are well understood. The economic models exist. What remains, in his framing, is a leadership and political will problem.
“We know how to do this,” he said. “Now private enterprise and public leaders need to get it done.”
His advocacy firm is built around that conviction. The goal is to give sustainable businesses and technologies the level playing field they need to compete. Right now, as he sees it, the playing field tilts toward incumbent industries, some of which actively resist the policy changes needed to protect collective economic, environmental, and physical health.
But Brieger’s outlook is not pessimistic. He draws real confidence from a simple fact: “People want solutions and we live in a democracy.” Environmental governance built on sound legal architecture, scientific credibility, and practical compliance design has a path forward. The institutions that get this right will produce durable change. The ones that cut corners on design will find, eventually, that their regulations do not hold.
That is the lesson a quarter century of environmental prosecution, regulatory work, and legislative advocacy keeps teaching. And it is the argument Brieger keeps making, in courtrooms, in agency conference rooms, and in the legislative hearings where climate policy is still being written.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers seeking guidance on environmental compliance, regulatory matters, or climate law should consult a qualified attorney licensed in the relevant jurisdiction.
0 Comments