The D.C. Circuit Confirms: FERC Shouldn’t Just Ignore Downstream Emissions in its NEPA Documents

Jamison Colburn climate change, FERC, fracking, 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 […]

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The National Flood Insurance Program: Time to Weigh Some Alternatives?

Jamison Colburn climate change, FEMA, risk governance , , ,

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 […]

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When a President Rescinds a Memo

Jamison Colburn CEQ Watch, climate change, risk governance , , ,

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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Conference Announcement: NEPA in Transition

Jamison Colburn blog ,

This “special institute” from the good folks at the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation is worth noting.  Set for November 2-3, 2017, in Denver with a star-studded cast, it should be worth much more than the many CLE credits on offer!  Cribbing from their announcement: With ongoing required federal permitting and approvals on energy and […]

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A Guide that Doesn’t Guide?

Jamison Colburn CEQ Watch, climate change , , , , 1

The final Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) guidance on “the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in [NEPA] reviews” was signed August 1.  Although it omitted some of the more troubling points raised by the December 2014 draft (good), the document—styled as a memorandum to agency heads—is disappointingly passive on a vast and […]

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*Good* News for Cape Wind? NEPA Compliance Comes in Steps

Jamison Colburn BOEM, climate change, judicial relief, offshore wind , , ,

Cape Wind—America’s poster child for NIMBY litigation run amok—just emerged from a D.C. Circuit panel’s review with a telling result. Fast on the heels of a Ninth Circuit holding setting aside a proposed windfarm’s NEPA document for insufficient data, the D.C. Circuit announced on Tuesday that it was setting aside the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) […]

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KXL the Keystone of US/Canada Relations No Longer

Jamison Colburn climate change, oil, pipelines , ,

As has been widely reported, the KXL application will be denied.  Our stories about KXL (like here) noted the challenges inherent in counting greenhouse gas emissions from something like the Alberta tar sands.  In weighing a single infrastructure project (even an immense one) meant to speed development, it proved exceedingly hard to synthesize good accounting rules sorting out which emissions to […]

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