Pebble Mine’s Environmental Review Foreshadows Future “Streamlined” Process Forged by Trump Administration: “Today in Bristol Bay, Alaska, fishermen are pulling some of the season’s last wild sockeye salmon from the bay. Also today, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is publishing a document with major implications for those salmon and the people who depend on them. That document, two years in the making, is the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Pebble Mine, a proposed copper and gold mine set to be built among the tributaries that drain into Bristol Bay and its US $1.5-billion sockeye fishery. Just a week ago, the Trump administration finalized a sweeping overhaul of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the 50-year-old bedrock environmental law that mandates environmental reviews and public input for major projects like the Pebble Mine…Critics of the Pebble Mine’s relatively short environmental review process have been quick to draw parallels between the new NEPA rules and what they say they experienced engaging with USACE even before the law’s overhaul. “I think Bristol Bay is the poster child for the Trump administration gutting the NEPA process. The truncated timeline, two and a half years, is literally a fraction of the usual time frame that this type of analysis takes,” says Alannah Hurley, a Yup’ik woman who grew up in Bristol Bay. By comparison, the environmental review for another gold mine in southwest Alaska, Donlin Gold, took six years. Hurley is the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a consortium of 15 tribal governments representing 80 percent of the region’s residents, most of whom still practice subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. “For us this is a human rights issue, this is an Indigenous rights issue,” she adds. “To be honest, from a tribal perspective, the NEPA process wasn’t that great to begin with,” says Hurley. “So for it to now be even worse, and harder for the public and tribal governments to engage in that process to ensure that impacts to their communities are considered, is astounding. It’s infuriating.’”

[Hakai Magazine, 7/24/20] https://bit.ly/39pN5k7

Trump administration says massive Alaska gold mine won’t cause major environmental harm, reversing Obama: “Trump officials will conclude Friday that a proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska — which would be North America’s largest — would not pose serious environmental risks, a sharp reversal from a finding by the Obama administration that it would permanently harm the region’s prized sockeye salmon. The official about-face regarding the bitterly contested project epitomizes the whiplash that has come to define environmental policy under President Trump, who has methodically dismantled many of his predecessor’s actions on climate change, conservation and pollution. In a final environmental analysis obtained by The Washington Post, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that Pebble Mine, which targets a deposit of gold, copper and other minerals worth up $500 billion, “would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers” in the Bristol Bay watershed that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The Obama administration, which looked at multiple project scenarios, concluded in 2014 that a major mine in the area could cause irreparable harm. The bitter fight over Pebble Mine has raged for nearly two decades. Halted by the last administration, the project has been fast tracked under Trump and is poised to get final federal approval by the end of the year. But a coalition of local residents and national environmental groups will challenge the permit in court, and the next administration could block it once again if Democrats win the White House in the fall. It is just one of several huge infrastructure proposals with a fate that depends on this year’s presidential election. Trump has sought to expedite two major oil and gas pipelines the Obama administration had blocked: Keystone XL and Dakota Access. Both have encountered legal setbacks in recent months, and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has already pledged to stop Keystone if elected on the grounds that it would accelerate climate change. Another major Trump administration initiative in Alaska — lifting logging restrictions in Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest temperate rainforest — might also be reversed if the president fails to win a second term.”

[Washington Post, 7/24/20] https://wapo.st/3g0ypdR

Trump Administration Ignores Pebble Mine’s Dangers to Alaska: “The Army Corps of Engineers issued its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed gold and copper mining project in Bristol Bay Alaska called Pebble Mine. The analysis is full of gaps, deficiencies, and legal blunders. The Army Corps conducted a hasty review at breakneck speed and ignored the tribes, cooperating agencies, and other stakeholders who identified serious errors in the agency’s process. In its rush to permit the Pebble Mine, the Army Corps has shown a complete disregard for the people and environment in Bristol Bay. The Corps’ earlier draft EIS was panned by a former Rio Tinto mining expert as “fatally flawed,” and a member of Congress called it a “sham” and an “abomination.” Several federal and state agencies registered serious concerns in lengthy comments, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, which described it as “so inadequate that it precludes meaningful analysis.” The final EIS is no better. The Army Corps’ absolute lack of regulatory rigor has resulted in a grossly deficient permitting process and woefully inadequate final EIS. The Corps has cut legal corners, relied on incomplete or outmoded science, and failed to require any economic feasibility analysis. Worse, the Army Corps has completely ignored the voices of Bristol Bay’s Indigenous peoples and tribes who adamantly oppose the Pebble Mine. The Pebble Mine would threaten the world’s greatest wild salmon fishery, which generates $1.5 billion in annual revenue and 14,000 jobs. Salmon have sustained Bristol Bay subsistence culture, community, and identity of Alaska Natives for millennia. It's no wonder that the people of Bristol Bay and Alaska overwhelmingly oppose it.”

[NRDC, 7/24/20] https://on.nrdc.org/30H27y1

Federal regulatory change could affect environmental reviews, infrastructure projects in Texas: “The rule change received a positive response from several lawmakers and energy industry representatives, who said delays to a variety of projects ranging from pipelines to roads and other infrastructure initiatives could be reduced by the updated regulation. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shared his support for the changes to the NEPA in a July statement and said he expects the update to streamline reviews and development in the state. “Restoring efficiency in the NEPA review process will enhance public safety, improve environmental outcomes and deliver cost benefits to consumers. I strongly support programmatic NEPA reform at the CEQ and individual agency levels and look forward to its implementation,” Abbott said…Other environmental regulations, underfunded federal agencies and judicial review of certain projects—an option environmental activist groups have used to slow some federally associated projects in recent years—remain potential obstacles in accelerating reviews, he said. “The causal claim here that environmental reviews are stalling federal permitting or federal projects or federal actions is a very, very dubious claim at the beginning. And so the solution that they’ve come up with doesn’t really match what the actual cause [is] in the real world,” Adelman said. The NEPA update expands the use of categorical exclusions—actions that have been previously determined to have little effect on the environment and are therefore not subject to further review—which could result in bypassing the NEPA and reducing a level of public input. “The new regulations require maximum use of emergency exclusions, categorical exclusions (both of which basically exempt the project from NEPA [regulations], including exempting the public process) ... The new regulations also require the use of work previously done, no matter how old or outdated,” Environment Texas Executive Director Luke Metzger said in an email.”

[Community Impact Newspaper, 7/24/20] https://bit.ly/2WT4759

Wyoming responds to overhaul of landmark environmental act: “Wyoming produces more minerals from public land than almost any other state in the country and also maintains some of the most coveted wildlife habitats in the world. That makes the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to the nation’s landmark environmental act, finalized last week, especially potent for the leading energy producer. On Thursday, the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality published its final revisions to regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, with the aim of “streamlining and modernizing” the act. In the week since President Donald Trump announced the monumental changes, Wyoming lawmakers, citizens and industry leaders have responded — heaping both praise and disapproval on the regulatory overhaul. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso immediately cheered the advancement of the new provisions last week. “President Trump is cutting red tape to help get our economy back in the black,” Barrasso said in a statement. “These updates will make the National Environmental Policy Act work better for the American people. Right now, important construction projects are being slowed down because of lengthy government permitting processes and lawsuits. The administration is making this process more predictable and efficient. We can protect the environment and move our economy forward at the same time. This rule gets that done.” The 74-page final rule published in the Federal Register outlines in detail the slew of updates made to NEPA. In one revision overwhelmingly welcomed by Wyoming energy actors, federal regulators will have a mandate under the new rule to complete environmental impact statements within two years. The statements will be limited to 150 pages, or 300 pages for projects “of unusual scope or complexity.” Right now, environmental impact statements take an average of 4.5 years. Environmental assessments will need to be completed on a one-year timeline and cannot be longer than 75 pages. The new rule also modified what kinds of infrastructure projects will require a NEPA review. Under the new rule, “non-federal,” or private projects with little federal involvement, would receive exemption from rigorous environmental reviews now mandated under NEPA.”

[Casper Star Tribune, 7/24/20] https://bit.ly/3jB93FF

Bear baiting jeopardizes grizzlies, Hailey nonprofit says: “A lawsuit seeking to ban the practice of bait-hunting black bears in Idaho and Wyoming has survived legal challenges from both the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this year. That’s good news for grizzlies, according to the Hailey-based nonprofit Western Watersheds Project, one of three plaintiffs in the case. The lawsuit, filed in June 2019, contends that baiting black bears—or habituating them to food stations, thus creating regular dining patterns and making them easier targets—has led to the inadvertent deaths of federally protected grizzly bears in Wyoming and Idaho. According to Talasi Brooks, Western Watersheds staff attorney, only Idaho and Wyoming allow hunters to bait black bears in national forests. The concern, she says, is that hunters could shoot grizzlies due to mistaken identity. “At least three grizzly bears have been killed in Idaho by hunters since 2007,” Brooks said. “We believe there’s a real possibility that this could happen again.” In Idaho and Wyoming, black bear baiting is not allowed in occupied grizzly bear habitat. In Idaho, grizzly recovery zones include the Kootenai, Idaho Panhandle and Lolo National Forests, as well as the Selkirk ecosystem in the northwestern corner of the state. But grizzly populations have expanded into north-central Idaho from the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, Brooks said, and aren’t diligently tracked by state and federal agencies. “Habitat charts aren’t regularly updated. When you have grizzly bears that aren’t commonly known to frequent a certain region, but they’re present there, those bears are not protected,” she said. One example she gave was a grizzly bear accidentally shot in 2007 by a black bear hunter in the Nez-Perce Clearwater National Forest. “It’s thought that that grizzly was the first to enter the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness complex in a very long period of time,” she said. Two other grizzly bears in Idaho, one in 2014 and one in 2015, have been accidentally killed by licensed hunters. In Wyoming, 20 grizzly bears have been accidentally hunted in national forests since 1996.”

[Mountain Xpress, 7/24/20] https://bit.ly/3fZOf8x

Justin McCarthy

He/Him/His

Director, NEPA Campaign

The Partnership Project
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.