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 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 more‘Official Action of the Agency Concerned’?
The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is becoming curioser and curioser, legally, as the Obama Administration has progressed. Not so much a “council” any longer as an “office” (in the loosest sense), CEQ is currently run by an appointee who arguably has no authority to take any official actions at all. And that makes the final […]
Read moreOf Bootstraps and Bar Graphs: Will NEPA Finally Do What the Endangered Species Act Couldn’t for Salmon?
Jamison Colburn action agencies, salmon & dams, uncategorized dams, endangered species, FCRPS, risk, salmon
Pick your Western metaphor and you can probably fit dams and fish on the great Columbia and Snake rivers into it somehow. The Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) is an engineering marvel. But it has become increasingly clear that it is incompatible with the region’s migratory fish. First a little background and then a […]
Read moreMust BLM Count Livestock Emissions in its NEPA Documents?
Jamison Colburn action agencies, BLM, uncategorized BLM, climate change, livestock GHG emissions, risk
A recent “complaint” served on the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) argues that the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) been shirking its NEPA duties on climate change issues. Is there any merit to the complaint? Unlike the parallel “petition” PEER served on BLM asking that BLM reform […]
Read moreFDA’s Approval of Genetically Engineered Fish will Head to Court.
As expected, the Center for Food Safety (among others) filed suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its approval of the AquaBounty Technologies genetically engineered Atlantic salmon for sale as food within the U.S. Among the many claims pled (the complaint runs 60+ pages) is that FDA’s NEPA routine (an environmental assessment and finding […]
Read moreA New Study Says Climate Change Gets Varied Treatment in Impact Statements
Just across our inbox recently: this new study from Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The study by Wentz and colleagues surveyed federal environmental impact statements (EISs) from 2012-2014 and found that the depth and breadth of agencies’ attention to climate change adaptation and climate change mitigation differed significantly. Perhaps more significantly, […]
Read moreThe Arrowhead Water War: Bottled Water, Drought & NEPA
Jamison Colburn action agencies, bottled water, inthenews, uncategorized, USFS bottled water, drought, Nestle, risk, San Bernardino
The San Bernardino National Forest has many special use permits. One in particular made the news in 2015. The Arrowhead Water bottling operation, currently owned by Nestlé, stood out for its water-a-plenty during a crippling drought. You see the Arrowhead permit to take the water (said by Nestlé to amount to 68,000 gallons a year […]
Read moreBeyond the Four Corners: Extending the Life of a Western Coal Belt
Jamison Colburn climate change, coal, inthenews, uncategorized coal, Four Corners, Navajo Mine, risk, social cost of carbon
Combined, the Navajo Generating Station, Four Corners Generating Station, and San Juan Generating Station make up a sizable portion of just about everything in their vicinity. Their emissions of greenhouse gases, conventional pollutants like particulates and NOx and SOx, and toxics like mercury, lead and selenium are enormous for the region. Their economic impact is […]
Read moreFERC, Programmatic Analysis and the Shale Gas Boom Going Bust
Jamison Colburn action agencies, fracking, pipelines, segmentation, uncategorized FERC, Marcellus, pipelines, risk
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the successor-agency to one of the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) principal catalysts, the now-defunct Federal Power Commission (FPC). The FPC was renowned for its ham-handed exclusion of environmentalists and other intervenors as it was licensing dams and other hydro projects in the 1960s. So recalcitrant and cozy […]
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