General
News
BLM Colo. Plan Did Not Fully Consider Climate — Lawsuit.
According to E&E News, “Environmental groups filed a lawsuit yesterday in a federal court opposing a Bureau of Land Management plan
for oil and gas leasing on about a million acres of public lands in western Colorado. The Center for Biological Diversity, Wilderness Society and Wilderness Workshop say BLM’s 2015 resource management plan for surface lands and mineral estates did not adequately
consider indirect, cumulative or downstream climate change impacts of the leases as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The groups also say the agency did not do enough to consider a range of alternatives to leasing. The groups noted that
the leases would include the area staked out for BLM’s proposed new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo. ‘It’s clear that the federal government is violating the law across the board when it comes to authorizing millions of acres of oil and gas without taking
a required hard look at the impacts to the climate,’ said Diana Dascalu-Joffe, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s public lands program. This latest legal challenge is part of a series of lawsuits targeting the federal government’s climate
analysis in plans for oil and gas development, including a recently filed case against another BLM resource management plan in Utah (Energywire, Sept. 13).” [E&E News,
10/9/19
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Report: Top Interior Official Has Denied Climate Change, Blamed Migrants For Disease.
According to The Hill, “A top Interior Department official reportedly denied the existence of climate change and compared undocumented
immigrants to ‘cancer.’ CNN reported Tuesday that Bureau of Land Management acting Director William Perry Pendley, who was appointed in July, also claimed that Islam was at war with America and blamed migrants for diseases. Pendley told the news outlet that
the comments were out of context and not relevant to his current job. ‘As someone in the public arena for nearly four decades, I’ve given countless statements and written scores of articles on a wide variety of topics. Cherrypicking a few of them out of context
is neither useful nor connected to my current position,’ he said. The news outlet reported that in a 1992 Heritage Foundation lecture, Pendley denied that there was a hole in the ozone layer and compared environmentalism to communism. ‘‘Environmentalism’ is
indeed the last refuge of the left, the last safe haven for those who trust, not the people, but big government, those who seek to place the power in the hands of federal bureaucrats,’ he said. ‘It should not surprise us that they have embraced environmentalism
with the same self-righteous fervor as they once embraced socialism and communism.’ ‘Despite the total absence of credible scientific evidence, the media is convinced and is attempting to convince us that we have global warming, an Ozone hole and acid rain
and that it is all man’s fault,’ he also said.” [The Hill, 10/8/19
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Feds Eye Past Inspections In Probe Of Fatal Pipeline Blast.
According to E&E News, “The 60-year-old pipeline that exploded in Kentucky two months ago had been inspected this year and last, according
to a preliminary report issued yesterday. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says those previous inspections by pipeline owner Enbridge Inc. will be a focus of its investigation. ‘Investigators are reviewing and reassessing the in-line inspection
data from the area of the rupture,’ NTSB officials wrote in the report. The Aug. 1 explosion near Moreland, Ky., killed a woman and injured six others. It ruptured shortly before 1:30 a.m., when most people in the nearby mobile home park were likely sleeping.
The explosion and fire destroyed five houses (Energywire, Sept. 5). Yesterday’s report did not suggest any cause for the rupture. Enbridge officials declined to answer questions about its previous inspections and other details of the report but issued a statement.
‘We are committed to ensuring the safety and reliability of our infrastructure across North America,’ the statement said, ‘and we are eager to take the learnings of NTSB’s forthcoming final report and apply them to our comprehensive operations and maintenance
practices and programs moving forward.’ The line was part of the Texas Eastern system, rapidly built during World War II but dramatically expanded in later years into a 9,000-mile network running from the Gulf Coast to the northeastern United States. Enbridge
acquired Texas Eastern in 2017 when it merged with Spectra Energy Corp.” [E&E News,
10/9/19
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Warren, Markey Take Aim At Natural Gas Project.
According to E&E News, “Massachusetts senators introduced legislation today to prevent the installation of a natural gas compressor
station meant to bolster a pipeline moving Marcellus Shale gas to a Canadian export facility. The bill, from Democratic Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, would effectively block the installation nationwide of new compressor stations currently not in operation
that would lead to the export of natural gas. The purpose, the duo said, was to prevent the construction of the proposed compressor station in Weymouth, Mass., from moving forward as part of Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.’s planned Atlantic Bridge Project. ‘No
compressor station should be built in our communities, threaten the safety of our residents, and harm our environment just to support our natural gas being sent overseas to the highest bidder,’ Markey said in a statement. The project to install a new compressor
station, multiple compressor units at existing stations, and 6.6 miles of relay pipeline to support the existing Algonquin Gas Transmission and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline systems earned Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval in the final days of
the Obama administration.” [E&E News, 10/8/19
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Wilderness Wars: 'There's An Assault On Public Lands'.
According to E&E News, “At 91, Walter Mondale endured a seven-hour drive and a short flight in June to go fishing on Canada’s Elsie Lake, deep in Ontario’s wilderness. It’s a yearly
trek for the former Democratic vice president from Minnesota, who spent much of his long public career fighting to protect the wilderness areas he calls ‘a precious, almost sacred part of American life.’ Thirty-five years after his failed presidential run,
Mondale has a new battle: Prevent the Trump administration from allowing a Chilean-owned company to open a copper-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the northeastern tip of his home state. ‘They’re just going at it every day, and
it’s sickening,’ he said in an interview. ‘There’s a strong element of this current Republican Party that just detests anything done to defend the environment. ... They’re wrong politically. And if this is the way they’re going to keep at it, the public’s
going to turn against them. Most people realize we need to protect the environment.’ The yearslong slugfest in Minnesota over the mine is just one of many high-profile wilderness fights featuring familiar foes. Environmentalists and their allies want to preserve
and expand wilderness areas before more land is developed. Their opponents want more jobs and more recreational access before too much property gets locked up.” [E&E News,
10/8/19 (=)]
Chad Ellwood
Climate Action Campaign
202.448.2877 ext. 119