Earlier this week, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the National Environmental Policy Act does not authorize the Council on Environmental Quality to issue binding regulations governing how federal...more
On July 16, 2023, Climatewire (subscription required) released a peer review letter on EPA’s Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (SC-GHG), which got a fair bit of press last year, because EPA’s metric was $190/ton, even though...more
Last week, Judge Donald Malloy vacated the Environmental Assessment for the Bull Mountains Mine No. 1 in central Montana. Judge Malloy had already vacated the EA once; when the 9th Circuit affirmed Judge Malloy’s decision...more
Earlier this week, the decision in Bartell Ranch v. McCullough generally supported the Bureau of Land Management’s review under NEPA and related statutes of a lithium mine near Thacker Pass, Nevada. If approved, Thacker Pass...more
On Friday, I posted about a decision invalidating BLM Resource Manage Plans for failure to comply with NEPA. My caption was “NEPA Is Still Going to Pose an Obstacle to Leasing Public Lands for Fossil Fuel Extraction.”...more
Earlier this month, Chief Judge Brian Morris made clear that NEPA remains a powerful weapon against the leasing of public lands for fossil fuel extraction. It’s déjà vu all over again for the projects at issue. In 2018,...more
Last month, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf wrote to the Federal Highway Administration, stating that Oakland “is suffering from a crippling housing and homelessness crisis.”...more
Earlier this week, the Council on Environmental Quality promulgated its Phase I rule amending the NEPA regulations. The final rule largely implements the proposed rule, though with some minor changes. Since the final rule...more
Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals again rejected a FERC NEPA review for failure to assess the climate impacts resulting from the downstream use of natural gas supplied by a gas pipeline upgrade project...more
So CEQ has proposed to amend the NEPA regulations in order to eliminate some of the changes made by the Trump Administration in 2020. Important changes include:
• explicit consideration of indirect impacts
• renewed...more
10/12/2021
/ CEQ ,
Clean Energy ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Assessments ,
Environmental Impact Statements ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Environmental Policies ,
Infrastructure ,
NEPA ,
Trump Administration ,
Wind Power
Environmental justice is clearly an idea whose time has – finally – come. The need to find the intersection between the search for racial justice and efforts to save the planet is undeniable. If we get it right, we’ll be at...more
On August 3, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that FERC could not avoid use of the social cost of carbon in assessing the impacts of natural gas projects by arguing that “there is no universally accepted...more
8/6/2021
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Carbon Pricing ,
Climate Change ,
Environmental Impact Statements ,
Environmental Justice ,
FERC ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
NEPA ,
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) ,
Summary Judgment
Earlier this Month, Judge James Boasberg, who had previously ruled that the easement allowing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline must be vacated due to a failure to comply with NEPA, nonetheless declined to issue an...more
The President today formally announced that the United States was pledging to reduce its emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030. The announcement isn’t a surprise, but that doesn’t lessen its importance. So large a...more
Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed vacatur of the easement issued to the Dakota Access Pipeline by the Army Corps of Engineers. As I noted last month in connection with the Biden Executive Order...more
2/4/2021
/ Appeals ,
Biden Administration ,
Dakota Access Pipeline ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Impact Statements ,
Executive Orders ,
NEPA ,
New Legislation ,
Oil & Gas ,
Pipelines ,
US Army Corps of Engineers
Last week, Judge James Jones declined to issue a preliminary injunction that would have prevented implementation of the Trump Administration’s NEPA revisions. Judge Jones’s explanation was fairly sparse. He merely noted that...more
CEQ has finalized revisions to the NEPA regulations. I don’t have too much to add to my post on the proposed rule back in January. NEPA needs reform. These regulations, however, are not the reform NEPA needs...more
I don’t like to speculate, so I won’t say that July 6, 2020, was the beginning of the end of fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States. I will say, with apologies to Judith Viorst, that it was a Terrible, Horrible, No...more
It is generally understood that the shift from coal to gas has helped, at least in the short run, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. It is certainly true that combustion of natural gas releases less CO2 per unit of...more
Ever since President Nixon visited China, significantly contributing to a thawing of the Cold War, the phrase “Nixon in China” has referred to any situation where a leader makes a policy move that would have been more...more
Last week, Federal District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted a preliminary injunction to various NGOs, barring the Bureau of Land Management from implementing amendments BLM had made in 2019 to protection plans for the...more
Earlier this week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed a district court decision, and ordered the Bureau of Land Management to vacate the NEPA approvals and permits it had issued authorizing the drilling of a...more
5/13/2019
/ Appeals ,
Bureau of Land Management ,
Energy Sector ,
Federal Land ,
Fracking ,
NEPA ,
NHPA ,
Oil & Gas ,
Reversal ,
Vacated ,
Well Drilling
In 2016, DOI Secretarial Order 3338 imposed a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land until BLM prepared a programmatic environmental impact statement intended to address, among other issues, the impact of coal leasing...more
4/26/2019
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Climate Change ,
Coal ,
Coal Industry ,
Department of the Interior ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Assessments ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Federal Land ,
Final Action ,
Mineral Leases ,
Moratorium ,
NEPA ,
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) ,
Trump Administration
Last week, a federal judge once more rejected the Environmental Assessment for the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana. The case does not really break any new ground, but it does add to the growing number of cases...more
Earlier this month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that is a must-read for anyone who will be needing at some point to relicense an existing hydroelectric facility. The short version is the status quo may...more