The Council on Environmental Quality had an entry in the recent Office of Management and Budget’s “Semi-Annual” regulatory review agenda. That entry, which is suspiciously devoid of details, simply announces a generic, perhaps unformed intention to revisit the 1978 CEQ rules implementing NEPA § 102. Until something more explicit is published, however, CEQ has provided exactly […]
Read moreThe ‘Weaponization’ of NEPA: A Hyper-Partisan Time for Bi-partisan Solutions?
Last week the House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing on the “weaponization” of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the “lawfare” surrounding it. There were key points made from both trenches. There were muted calls for bi-partisan solutions. But there are few signs that much is going to change. Here are some […]
Read morePrivatizing the War on Coal
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris halted a slew of coal leases in the so-called Powder River Basin (PRB) district of southern Montana and north-central Wyoming. See Western Org. of Resource Councils v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 2018 WL 1456624 (D. Mont.2018). PRB coal, for those in the know, is synonymous with […]
Read moreThe D.C. Circuit Confirms: FERC Shouldn’t Just Ignore Downstream Emissions in its NEPA Documents
Jamison Colburn climate change, FERC, fracking, pipelines FERC, fracking, GHGs, NEPA, Southeast Market pipelines
The big word from the D.C. Circuit just out yesterday in Sierra Club v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2017 WL 3597014 (D.C. Cir. 2017), is this: “downstream” emissions in pipeline approvals—the emissions that will or may occur as a result of the pipeline’s operation—cannot just be categorically excluded from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) NEPA […]
Read moreWilliams & Co. Stumble in Pipeline Project: Did NYS Just Create a Playbook?
Jamison Colburn Army Corps of Engineers, CWA Section 401, FERC, fracking, pipelines constitution pipeline, FERC, fracking, risk
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) is the authorized agency implementing New York’s Clean Water Act water quality standards. The extraordinary thing about these standards is that federal projects that might violate those standards cannot just be waived through by a federal agency in control. Only the authorized state can do that […]
Read moreAmicus Brief in Support of Plaintiffs
It was a pleasure and honor to file this brief urging the district court in the Dakota Access case to vacate the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permissions to Dakota Access LLC to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. Back in June, the district court held that the Corps had committed several basic NEPA […]
Read moreA Pipeline, A North Dakota Community’s Water, and the End of a NEPA Saga?
Jamison Colburn Bureau of Reclamation, pipelines, risk governance Minot, NAWS, risk, water, whirling disease
Unless you’re one of the 80K+ residents of northern North Dakota who’s been waiting on this project, you’d be forgiven for thinking we mean that other pipeline that got hung up on NEPA. This pipeline is a straw moving water from one watershed (the Missouri River basin) to another (the Hudson Bay basin). The proposal […]
Read moreJobs v. Wilderness? NEPA’s Role in Enforcing (Other) Environmental Laws
Jamison Colburn Army Corps of Engineers, mining, segmentation copper mining, hard rock mining, Montanore, risk
The proposed Montanore mine in northwest Montana is a combined copper/silver behemoth, aimed at extracting some 12½ thousand tons of ore per day—virtually all of it from beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness (CMW). This sort of mining is a dirty affair and the tailings and other wastes are a major concern in this project. (See […]
Read moreThe National Flood Insurance Program: Time to Weigh Some Alternatives?
Jamison Colburn climate change, FEMA, risk governance FEMA, national flood insurance program, NEPA, risk
When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced in 2012 that it was beginning a scoping process on a “programmatic” environmental impact statement (EIS) for the national flood insurance program, heads didn’t exactly bob up and down in nervous excitement. Indeed, that announcement seemed to coincide with a congressional probe and threats on Capitol Hill […]
Read moreWhen a President Rescinds a Memo
Among the provisions of President Trump’s executive order on climate change was this: Section 3(c) The Council on Environmental Quality shall rescind its final guidance entitled “Final Guidance for Federal for Federal Departments and Agencies on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Effects of Climate Change in National Environmental Policy Act Reviews . . […]
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