Western governors demand say in NEPA overhaul: “Twenty-two Western governors are calling on the White House to give them a bigger role in reshaping the rules surrounding the nation's landmark environmental law. The chief executives urged the White House Council on Environmental Quality "to engage in meaningful, substantive, and ongoing government-to-government consultation with all interested states — through Governors or their designees — on any efforts to modify or update the NEPA process." The governors, from Western states spanning Kansas to Nebraska to Hawaii, have long stressed that states are necessary partners in environmental review and should not be boxed out of major changes. They have called for streamlined reviews of energy projects proposed for federal lands in their states. In a resolution earlier this year, Western governors said they have "specialized knowledge of their states' environments, resources, laws, cultures, and economies that is essential to informed federal decision-making." Yesterday, the Federalist Society and ConservAmerica hosted a call on the proposed NEPA changes. It functioned as a debate between environmental and regulatory policy professors over how significant and potentially detrimental the CEQ proposal could be. Mario Loyola, a former CEQ political appointee from 2017 to 2019, said on the call that he is working with a Senate office on legislation to solve some of the larger-scale problems with NEPA. Reached for comment after the call, he declined to elaborate.”

[E&E News, 3/26/20] https://bit.ly/2wHf8fY

 

Dakota access pipeline: court strikes down permits in victory for Standing Rock Sioux: “The future of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline has been thrown into question after a federal court on Wednesday struck down its permits and ordered a comprehensive environmental review. The US army corps of engineers was ordered to conduct a full environmental impact statement (EIS), after the Washington DC court ruled that existing permits violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The ruling is a huge victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota, which rallied support from across the world and sued the US government in a campaign to stop the environmentally risky pipeline being built on tribal lands. “After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” said the tribal chairman, Mike Faith. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet.” In December 2016, the Obama administration denied permits for the pipeline to cross the Missouri river and ordered a full EIS to analyze alternative routes and the impact on the tribe’s treaty rights. In his ruling on Wednesday, the federal judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, said the environmental analysis by both the companies behind the pipeline and the corps was severely lacking. The abysmal safety record of the pipeline parent company, Sunoco, “does not inspire confidence”, he added. The court-mandated EIS will be more in depth than the assessment already completed by the corps – and could take years. The court will next decide if the pipeline should be shut down until the EIS is done. The corps did not respond to a request for comment.”

[The Guardian, 3/25/20] https://bit.ly/2UQLqxt

 

Court sides with tribes in Dakota Access Pipeline case, ordering full environmental review: “The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline hit another roadblock Wednesday when a federal judge struck down permits for the pipeline and ordered a full workup of the environmental impacts of the project. North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had sued over the project with protestors from around the country coming to rally against pipeline construction that would travel across native lands and cross the Missouri River. The U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit sided with the tribe, ordering the Army Corps of Engineers, which granted the permits for the project, to do a full environmental impact statement. In the next phase of the case, a judge will weigh whether the pipeline should be shut down while the case continues. “After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Mike Faith said in a statement. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took four years ago to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet.” President Trump signed an executive order to expedite construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline during his first week in office. Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, said the environmental analysis by both the companies behind the pipeline and the Corps was severely lacking. “In projects of this scope, it is not difficult for an opponent to find fault with many conclusions made by an operator and relied on by the agency," he wrote in the 42-page decision. "But here, there is considerably more than a few isolated comments raising insubstantial concerns.”

[The Hill, 3/25/20] https://bit.ly/2y5A7cM

 

Huge Win for Standing Rock and the National Environmental Policy Act: “Today, in a major win against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the pipeline remains “highly controversial” under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not “adequately discharged its duties under that statute,” and ordered the Army Corps to prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The court will also order a briefing on whether to shut down the pipeline while the EIS is being prepared. This is a major development in the four-year-old DAPL lawsuit, which has pitted the governments of the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes against the government of the United States and the oil industry stakeholders that operate and use the pipeline. The tribes attended a court hearing on March 18 to determine whether additional studies on the pipeline’s environmental impacts were adequate under NEPA. They contended that the impacts of the pipeline have never been properly evaluated. They cited numerous violations of federal pipeline regulations, such as the failure to properly account for a worst-case oil spill in the Missouri River, relied upon by the tribes for community drinking water supplies, as well as fish and wildlife. To the tribes, and those in  the greater environmental community, the construction and ongoing operation of DAPL represented a failure by the federal government, which, under NEPA, is supposed to protect affected communities when it issues permits for large infrastructure projects, like oil pipelines. The principles of environmental justice emphasize the need to be especially vigilant when low-income communities are impacted or when, as here, pipelines are allowed to pose risks to tribal communities that have treaties with the United States to protect their remaining tribal lands. The next steps for the tribes will be to make this point during the briefing to discuss whether to vacate the easement during this remand—in other words, to shut down the pipeline while the EIS is being prepared.”

[NRDC, 3/25/20] https://on.nrdc.org/33ONjyD

 

Judge axes NEPA review of Dakota Access. Will it shut down?: “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe scored a long-awaited win yesterday when a federal judge ordered the government to rework its environmental analysis of a controversial pipeline that is already carrying oil between North Dakota and Illinois. Parties in the Dakota Access dispute must now tell Judge James Boasberg for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia whether the pipeline should be shut down while the Army Corps of Engineers completes a more robust National Environmental Policy Act review of the project. "Unrebutted expert critiques regarding leak-detection systems, operator safety records, adverse conditions, and worst-case discharge mean that the easement approval remains 'highly controversial' under NEPA," Boasberg wrote in his opinion filed yesterday. "As the Court thus cannot find that the Corps has adequately discharged its duties under that statute, it will remand the matter to the agency to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement," he wrote. The judge, an Obama appointee, said it was not enough for an agency to simply try to address concerns raised under the NEPA process. "That's a good win for the tribes," said Jeanette Wolfley, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law. "They have finally convinced the court that the Corps hasn't actually met its [NEPA] obligations.’”

[E&E News, 3/26/20] https://bit.ly/2QOH3S2

 

Greens seek to resurrect power plant, Navajo mine dispute: “Environmental groups are asking the Supreme Court to give them another shot at challenging a coal-fired power plant and adjacent strip mine in New Mexico. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year rebuffed the groups' plea to scrap an Interior Department permit for an expansion of the Four Corners power plant and mine on Navajo Nation land near Farmington, N.M. Judges for the 9th Circuit agreed with a lower court that the green groups could not sue over the permit allowing Arizona Public Service Co. to operate the facility through 2041 without the involvement of Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC). But because NTEC is an arm of the Navajo tribe, the court found that its sovereign immunity insulates it from the litigation and granted the company's request to dismiss the case. "That means that federal agencies can ignore requirements of environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when approving activities on tribal land or undertaken by tribal entities — because such activities benefit Indian tribes or tribally owned businesses that cannot be joined because of tribal sovereign immunity," the coalition, led by DinĂ© Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, wrote in its request yesterday for Supreme Court review. It takes the votes of four justices to accept a petition. The court takes up about 1% of cases it receives. The San Juan Citizens Alliance, Amigos Bravos, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity are also listed as challengers. The 9th Circuit's conclusion directly conflicts with decisions from three other benches, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the environmental groups argued. The 9th and 10th circuits collectively contain more than 90% of federally owned land and nearly all land held by American Indian tribes, attorneys for the groups wrote.”

[E&E News, 3/25/20] https://bit.ly/2JmDGgZ

 

Conservationists: Proposed NEPA Changes Threaten PA Forests: “Conservation groups say proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, would let potentially damaging projects avoid rigorous review and public input. For more than 50 years, NEPA has been the federal process that helps protect water, air and wilderness areas from environmental damage. But according to Kirk Johnson, executive director of the group Friends of Allegheny Wilderness, the proposed changes would make NEPA an environmental review process in name only. "Really all that it would be doing would be rubber stamping, in effect, industry proposals for development on federal public lands," he points out. The federal Council on Environmental Quality says the changes would make reviews by federal agencies more efficient, effective and timely. But Johnson says the proposal would erect barriers to public participation and judicial review, while allowing the bare minimum level of environmental review -- or no review at all. "There are provisions that would hand over control to extractive and other industries, and in essence, ensure that no matter what, everything always leads to approval of industry proposals," he states. Johnson adds that environmental and conservation groups across the country submitted comments in opposition to the proposed changes. He points out that NEPA was instrumental in stopping a recent mountain biking proposal for Pennsylvania's largest inventoried roadless area, the proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness area in the Allegheny National Forest. "Any time an agency puts forward a bad proposal that's going to harm wilderness or potential wilderness, we need to be able to rely on a NEPA law that has teeth," Johnson stresses.”

[Public News Service, 3/25/20] https://bit.ly/3dxV6FB

 

LETTER: Stop Policy Changes: “I thank The Post and Courier for the March 16 story, “Rollback of federal review could mean less scrutiny on critical SC infrastructure projects” by Chloe Johnson. The story detailed how one of the bedrock protections of the marsh, beach and ocean that we love is threatened. The proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act would limit our opportunity to give input into development, including offshore drilling for oil and gas. I’m fond of hats (and some would say that the addition of hats to my wardrobe is in direct proportion to my loss of hair). My latest hat has a message across the front, “We The People.” Of course that is the beginning of the preamble to the Constitution. Actions, like the proposed changes to NEPA, fly in the face of the basic understanding that when important decisions that impact the people are being made, their ability to give their input should not be curtailed.”

[Charleston Post and Courier, 3/26/20] https://bit.ly/2QMzcoc

 

 

 

Justin McCarthy

Director, NEPA Campaign

The Partnership Project
1612 K St, NW

Washington, DC 20006 USA
C: (540) 312-3797

E: jmccarthy@partnershipproject.org

protectnepa.org

The Partnership Project, a registered 501 (c) (3) non-profit, is a collaborative effort of over 20 of the country’s most influential advocacy organizations, including Sierra Club, Earthjustice, League of Conservation Voters, and Natural Resources Defense Council.