Trump gives few details, but plan gradually unfolding: “President Trump laid out his plans for infrastructure in broad strokes last night, but the details remain elusive. "I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve," Trump said in his first State of the Union address. "Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need." The remarks were not dissimilar to what the president said about infrastructure nearly a year ago during a speech to a joint session of Congress at the outset of his presidency. But $1.5 trillion is $500 billion more than what he proposed in that earlier address, and a significant bump in what the White House had initially suggested in preliminary talks with Congress. Despite the relative lack of details in the speech, lawmakers are watching as tangible infrastructure proposals gradually emerge from the White House. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said the president was planning to bring more information to the Republican policy retreat in West Virginia this week. "America is a nation of builders," Trump said last night. "We built the Empire State Building in just one year — is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?" There are indeed instances of long permitting wait times for infrastructure projects, as congressional Republicans are quick to point out. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for instance, it took nearly 20 years to navigate environmental permits and lawsuits over potential wetlands damage for a new runway that eventually opened in 2008. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and other lawmakers have highlighted the airport as they make the case for permitting reform. But critics say those kinds of broad conclusions about permitting are misleading. Environmentalists in particular think the administration is misrepresenting the burden of environmental laws like NEPA and how the permitting process works. "Trump's proposal fails to acknowledge the lengths to which federal agencies have already gone to reform these laws and reform permitting times," Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for energy and environment policy at the Center for American Progress, said in a call with reporters yesterday before the speech. Some Democrats, meanwhile, have also started to balk at Trump's permitting reform proposals. House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said a bigger federal investment — rather than environmental permits — should be the target of the plan.”

[E&E News, 1/31/18] https://goo.gl/2Ezx5j

Court lets Bayou Bridge advance as opposition brews: “A federal court will not immediately block a Southern oil pipeline from moving forward. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana yesterday refused to freeze construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, set to stretch 162 miles across southern Louisiana. The project, backed by Dakota Access pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners LP, would carry a half-million barrels per day of crude oil. A coalition of environmental groups and fishermen lined up in court earlier this month to oppose the Army Corps of Engineers' recent decision to greenlight Bayou Bridge. They asked the court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would halt construction immediately. Judge Shelly Dick, an Obama appointee, refused the request last night, noting that her initial review of the agency's environmental assessment for the pipeline did not show a clear violation of the National Environmental Policy Act. "Based on the current record, the Court is unable to reach such a finding and cannot justify issuing the extraordinary remedy of a TRO," she wrote. "While the other factors required for a TRO — namely, risk of irreparable injury, that the threatened injury outweighs the threatened harm to the Defendant, and that granting a TRO would serve the public interest — are arguably present, the Court's 'hands are tied' considering the proof required that Plaintiffs are substantially likely to succeed on the merits." However, the court will still consider a broader request for a preliminary injunction that would halt pipeline work for the duration of the litigation. Dick will review more in-depth briefs from both sides ahead of a Feb. 8 hearing. Bayou Bridge opponents are particularly concerned about potential harm to wild crawfish habitat and forested swamps in the Atchafalaya Basin. Other groups in the case are the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Gulf Restoration Network, Waterkeeper Alliance and Sierra Club.”

[E&E News, 1/31/18] https://goo.gl/oLF8YH

Letters: Bayou Bridge pipeline a bad idea: “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has taken actions that authorize the Bayou Bridge pipeline’s construction and operation in violation of federal statutes. In issuing these authorizations, the Corps declared that the pipeline would not have a significant impact on the environment, and did not require a FULL environmental impact statement, as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act for federally permitted projects with significant environmental impacts. The Corps must also analyze and address the cumulative impacts of a proposed project. Cumulative impacts are the result of any past, present, or future actions that are reasonably certain to occur. Such effects “can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.” Leaving spoil banks in place after completion of pipeline construction is a violation of permits issued by the Corps. However, the Corps has failed to enforce such permits; allowing pipeline companies to leave these spoil banks in place for years or decades, to the considerable detriment of the Basin’s ecology. Given budget cuts to all agencies, I’ll speculate there isn’t funding to enforce the law. Permit cost needs to be high enough to pay for verification of compliance. And failure to comply should carry a penalty big enough so it’s cheaper to comply than not. The Corps approval of the Pipeline, based on a plainly inadequate environmental review and consideration of mandatory factors under the law, injures the health, recreational, economic, professional, scientific, and aesthetic interests of the citizens of Louisiana. Before any more pipelines are built in the Basin, the Corps needs to enforce existing permits and bring illegal rights of way back into compliance. An oil spill in the dense swamp, particularly during high water periods when vast areas of the Basin are underwater, would be an ecological catastrophe. Clean up of an oil spill in the Basin would be extraordinarily difficult, expensive, and would have numerous environmental ramifications of its own.”

[Baton Rouge Advocate, 1/31/18] https://goo.gl/r9yFgM

Column: Threats to wildlife, environment have never been greater: “Just a few days ago, the National Forest Service (NSF) announced an effort to put the National Environmental Policy Act — the first and oldest of the environmental rights laws sometimes called the “magna carta of the environmental movement” — on the chopping block. Pressed by logging and mining interests, the NSF wants to eliminate the portion of the act that requires that citizens have a voice in evaluating industrial projects proposed for their communities and neighborhoods. Extractive industries have long urged the NFS to “streamline” public participation in the environmental assessment process, by which is meant, “get rid of it.” Without that provision, industrial projects could begin without adequate oversight, evaluation or public input on any kind. In a further attempt to unravel protections adopted during the Obama administration, President Trump proposes to open virtually all U.S. coastal waters to petroleum drilling, including the Arctic Ocean — among Earth's most fragile ecosystems. Apparently our president has forgotten, or never noticed, the monumental damage done to Gulf of Mexico waters, marine life and human livelihoods when BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and burned in 2010. Ranked as the largest oil spill in U.S. history, the disaster released 200 million gallons of petroleum into the Gulf, killed a myriad of dolphins, birds, sea turtles and other marine life, exposed thousands of cleanup workers and coastal residents to toxic chemicals, and caused incalculable economic loss to the coastal fishing industry. It also forced a six-month shut-down of all drilling in the Gulf. Yet in late December, the Trump administration proposed to revise safety regulations, several of which grew directly out of Deepwater Horizon. For “revise,” read “water down.” Two items in particular can only be understood as willful ignorance of the conditions that caused their adoption in the first place. Backing off on equipment changes designed to prevent a repeat of the conditions that caused 11 deaths when the Deepwater drill rig exploded; and an end to inspections by outside safety professionals in favor of self-regulation by the industry that is the root of the problem. The rationale for these changes, as offered by spokesmen for the administration, is that the post-explosion regulations are “burdensome” to the industry. Michael Bromwich, first director of the Federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement which oversees the rules, is not convinced. In response to a Washington Post report on the proposed changes, he advised that since neither of the new rules now being challenged took full effect until just last year, “the argument that the regulatory burden needs to be lifted ... is not credible.”  

[Meadville Tribune, 1/30/18] https://goo.gl/LuvspS

Montana Bison Range Lawsuit Settled: “Planning for the National Bison Range’s future looks set to move forward, now that a two-year-old lawsuit has been settled. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May 2016, when the agency was considering transferring the range, home to an estimated 350 bison, to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. But after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke backed away from this proposal and the service agreed to prepare a Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the settlement, the Maryland-based environmental group settled.  “We are delighted to sign this settlement. Now it’s time to stop litigating and start building for the future,” said PEER Senior Counsel Paula Dinerstein in a statement. The National Bison Range occupies 18,800 acres north of Ravalli. Together with five other territories in and near the Flathead Reservation, it forms the National Bison Range Complex, a National Wildlife Refuge administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service. For years, managing these lands has caused friction between the service, conservationists, and the tribes, who argued that the refuge’s 1908 creation amounted to the taking back of treaty-given lands. As the Daily Inter Lake reported in 2016, Fish and Wildlife officials have recently discussed converting the refuge into trust land for the tribes, who would also manage the area. PEER filed suit, making two main arguments. First, it claimed that the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to complete an environmental impact statement required for the legislation that would allow the transfer to proceed…It sought injunctions requiring the service to craft such a plan and preventing the transfer from going through. As PEER’s case sat in U.S. District Court, the Fish and Wildlife Service aligned its actions with the group’s goals. In January 2017, it sought public comment for a CCP, which would guide management activities on the range for 15 years. In keeping with the normal rule-making process, the agency also set forward some alternative courses of action, the “preferred” of which was a transfer to the tribes. In April, the Department of the Interior announced that a majority of comments “were against the preferred alternative,” and that Zinke had “changed course” on the issue. A Federal Register notice published the following month clarified that “we will not proceed with evaluating a preferred alternative of legislative transfer” of the range. PEER stated that these actions advanced both of the lawsuit’s goals. Under the settlement, the Fish and Wildlife Service will pay the group $50,000 as reimbursement for legal fees, and complete a CPP for the range by January 31, 2023, following the processes established by the National Environmental Policy Act. “We’re happy with it taking this much time, because we want it to be a really good, in-depth plan,” Dinerstein explained. “They have agreed to a very structured process that’s transparent to the public as to how they’re going to do this conservation plan.”

[Daily Interlake, 1/30/18] https://goo.gl/r8EUBa

Florida Brightline Fight: Vulnerable Treasure Coast Isn't Throwing in the Towel: “Over the past four years, residents' and opponents' passion for stopping the All Aboard Florida/Brightline passenger rail from speeding through the Treasure Coast has not abated. If anything, Treasure Coast residents have grown more resolute, underscored by Monday night’s packed house at the Lyric Theatre for the Citizens Against Rail Expansion's (CARE FL’s) fourth public meeting in downtown Stuart. The town hall followed action of Martin County commissioners, who voted unanimously during  their Jan. 9 regular meeting to continue the fight. They’re not giving up. And likely, neither will Indian River County. Four deaths within Brightline's inaugural two weeks heightened attention to CARE FL's primary concern -- the safety of residents, said Robert Crandall, retired CEO of American Airlines and a CARE board member. “Recent events just confirmed what we knew all along,” he said. “Did anyone honestly not see this was going to happen?” Crandall reminded the audience of the concerns listed in his Power-Point presentation and summarized on CARE FL brochures: “Our mission,” Crandall said, “is to protect our quality of life on the Treasure Coast. Period.” CARE was the first to retain Ryan to begin investigating their options for challenging the rail line in court, which has met with greater success than has been publicized, he said. The legal effort by the private group was soon supported as well by Indian River and Martin counties, which each allocated around $3 million over the past four years. At the January meeting, the Martin County Commission approved continuation of the legal fight with around $100,000 remaining of the county's allocation of funds, primarily because the court, in its previous judgment, encouraged rail opponents to file the suit again. They plan to do just that; Ryan added. But when they file and what, exactly, they intend to file will remain a secret until it's done; however, Martin County Attorney Sarah Heard gave commissioners a clue to their legal tack at the Jan. 9 meeting. Woods told commissioners then that the suit will focus on the failure of the US Department of Transportation to abide by NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) by issuing bonds without a “record of decision” in its review of what the legal staff believes is a flawed environmental impact statement. In addition, the bonds were allocated from highway project funds, which Woods and the legal counsel told commissioners was improper.”

[Sunshine State News, 1/30/18] https://goo.gl/WiSgGn

Justin McCarthy

Digital Director, NEPA Campaign

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