Focus
Department of Interior announces significant changes to Endangered Species Act
The New York Times – August 12
On Monday the U.S. Department of Interior announced significant changes, expected to go into effect next month, to the Endangered Species Act. Among other key changes, the new rules would make it more difficult for regulators to factor in the effects of climate change on wildlife when deciding whether a species warrants protection, on the ground that threats from climate change may not be immediate. Also, for the first time, regulators would be allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, to estimate lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat – and consider such economic impacts in their decision-making. Environmental groups, Democratic state attorneys general and Democrats in Congress denounced the changes and vowed to challenge them in Congress and in the courts.
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News
California-led coalition sues EPA over rollback of restrictions on coal-burning power plants
Los Angeles Times – August 13
California and a coalition of 21 other states and several major cities this Tuesday sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington over the agency’s effort to remove restrictions on coal-burning power plants under the 2015 Clean Power Plan, alleging that the EPA is abandoning its legal responsibility to regulate air pollution. Under the EPA's new plan, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, older coal-burning plants that faced almost certain obsolescence under the Clean Power Plan would be allowed to stay open with modest modifications. At a news conference on Tuesday, California Government Gavin Newson commented on the lawsuit, warning that climate change threatened both lives and livelihoods, and criticizing the current administration for failing to take action and sending the nation backward.
California moves to ban pesticide linked to developmental disorders
Los Angeles Times – August 14
California regulators this Wednesday took formal legal steps to ban chlorpyrifos, which is widely used as a pesticide on numerous crops including almonds, grapes, citrus, alfalfa, stone fruit, and cotton, but has been linked to developmental disorders and neurological damage. The ban comes in response to the federal EPA’s recent decision to extend its own review of the pesticide through 2022, a move that led California, six other states, and environmental and labor groups to sue the agency. The move by the state EPA is all but certain to draw legal challenges from Corteva Agriscience (formerly Dow AgroSciences), which has pushed back at attempts by environmentalists to ban chlorpyrifos on a federal level.
Environmental studies released for new $1 billion dam proposed for Santa Clara County
The Mercury News – August 9
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has released a 327-page draft environmental impact study on a proposed $1.1 billion dam and reservoir near Pacheco Pass in southeastern Santa Clara County. The project, which would be the first new large dam built in the Bay Area since Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County in 1998, grew out of California’s recent five-year drought. Environmental groups have raised concerns about the project’s costs, and the fact that it would submerge 1,245 acres of oak woodlands. But the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which provides water to 1.9 million Silicon Valley residents, says the new reservoir, which would have the capacity to hold 23 times as much water as the existing facility, is needed to store more water as insurance against California’s next drought.
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