News
$230M settlement reached over 2015 California oil spill
Associated Press – May 14
Plains All American Pipeline, the owner of a pipeline that spilled thousands of barrels of crude oil onto Southern California beaches in 2015, has agreed to pay $230 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by fishermen and property owners. The spill crippled the local oil business because the pipeline was used to transport crude to refineries from seven offshore oil rigs, which have been idled since the spill. The company already paid for the cleanup, which was estimated in 2017 to cost $335 million. Under the latest settlement, the company will pay an additional $184 million to fishermen and fish processors and $46 million to coastal property owners. The settlement is subject to public comment and federal court approval.
ExxonMobil sues Santa Barbara County over denial of oil trucking plan
KCBX – May 18
ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against Santa Barbara County last week after the Board of Supervisors denied the company’s proposal to truck oil along Highways 101 and 166. Exxon’s plan proposed almost 25,000 truck trips a year to transport oil from its Santa Ynez Unit to refineries on the two highways in order to restart three offshore drilling platforms that were shut down in 2015 after the Plains All American Pipeline spill.
Seventeen states sue EPA for letting California set vehicle standards
The Hill – May 13
Seventeen state attorneys general last Friday announced a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for allowing California to set its own vehicle emissions standards. The lawsuit alleges EPA Administrator Michael Regan violated the U.S. Constitution’s “doctrine of equal sovereignty” by allowing California an exemption from the Clean Air Act, which the state used to impose more stringent emissions limits than the nationwide limit. In 2019 the Trump administration revoked California’s waiver previously granted in 2013. This week, California and a coalition of other states filed a motion to intervene in that lawsuit.
Judge reverses Trump-era ESA sage grouse move
E&E News – May 17
A federal judge on Monday struck down a 2020 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision that a distinct subpopulation of greater sage grouse found along the Nevada-California border does not warrant protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the FWS did not use the best available science in withdrawing a near decade-old decision to list the bi-state population of grouse as a “threatened” species.
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