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 . . […]
Read moreWhat’s the Real Value of a Tony Washington Address?
The mainstream media may be too wrapped up in the White House’s latest flogging of egos and dignity to have noticed this little NEPA tremor yesterday: the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) was evicted from its ancestral digs on Jackson Place, kitty-corner to the White House across Lafayette Square. CEQ has been at that address […]
Read moreWhen #MAGA Met NEPA: An Executive Order Without Style, Substance or Sting
Jamison Colburn bridge construction, CEQ Watch, wind turbines executive order, infrastructure, risk, Trump
On January 24th, President Trump issued one of his notorious executive orders (EOs)—this one to much less fanfare than some of the others. It was brief. It was surprisingly unnoticed by the media. Yet it took aim at the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) so we here at the Lab were keen to take a […]
Read moreA Guide that Doesn’t Guide?
Jamison Colburn CEQ Watch, climate change CEQ, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, NEPA, risk 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 […]
Read moreBREAKING: CEQ Releases Final GHG Guidance
The final amended guidance can be found here. We will be posting a full analysis later this week. For now it suffices to point out that the amended final has dropped all mention of a 25,000 metric ton threshold for treating GHG emissions in NEPA documents. It has also shifted much of the guidance’s content […]
Read moreFormer CEQ Chair Connaughton Takes the Helm of Nautilus
Nautilus Data Technologies, a firm specializing in data storage under water (where the cooling is free (for now!)) just announced their new CEO: the former head of the Council on Environmental Quality (2001-09), James L. Connaughton. Nautilus’s presser is here. The firm bills itself as [t]he first company to successfully launch a waterborne data center prototype, pioneering […]
Read moreNo Vacancy? Why the Inhofe Inquiry Should Probably Go Nowhere
As we’ve noted at the Lab before, CEQ has been without permanent leadership since Nancy Sutley resigned in early 2014. By operation of a little-known statute enacted in 1998, that might seem to leave a bit of a constitutional vacuum. That’s at least what Senator James Inhofe argued in twin letters to President Obama and […]
Read moreBreaking: It is Reasonably Foreseeable that Mined Coal Will be Burned
Jamison Colburn action agencies, CEQ Watch, coal, uncategorized CO2, coal, hard look, mining, Office of Surface Mining, risk
Besides skiing, endangered species habitat, and the rain shadow giving Boulder, Denver, and other parts of the Front Range their sunshine and abundant water, Colorado’s West Slope also secures its title of seventh largest coal producer in the Union. Two of Colorado’s three surface coal mines have made the news lately for big NEPA failures, […]
Read moreCEQ Coms Director Touts the “Value” of NEPA By Noting that Most NEPA Processes Last Only a Few Days.
Earlier this month, CEQ “Communications Director” Taryn Tuss posted a curious message on the office’s blog. It touted NEPA’s “value” by reporting that NEPA “leads to better economic and environmental outcomes for communities.” [agreed] But the post’s other two bullet points were that “[m]ore than 90 percent of environmental reviews are completed in a matter of […]
Read moreNEPA Analyses Shouldn’t Ignore the Obvious
The recent proposed guidance from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) about factoring climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the typical NEPA routine elicited spirited comments from industry (and some others) opposing the proposal. One claim industry commenters made forcefully is that the judicial decisions construing NEPA § 102(2)(C)’s “significance” threshold have mostly […]
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