Search Results for: NEPA
Mountaintop Removal: Incompatible with Climate Solutions and Incompatible with the Environment
Monday thousands of people converged on Washington, D.C. for the Appalachia Rising Rally to protest mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. Activists dumped 1,000 pounds of Appalachia dirt on EPA’s front lawn before marching on the White House. At a sit-in at PNC bank, four people were arrested while protesting that bank’s financing of MTR coal mining. …
CONTINUE READINGELQ’s 2010 annual review
Congratulations to Ecology Law Quarterly on publication of this year’s Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resources Law. Check out these fine articles: Filling the Regulatory Gap: A Proposal for Restructuring the Clean Water Act’s Two-Permit System, by Robert B. Moreno Reasonable Bases for Apportioning Harm under CERCLA, by Robert Guo Energy v. Water, by …
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CONTINUE READINGBreaking News: Jerry Brown Sues FHFA and Fannie & Freddie over PACE
As I suspected, we’ve got a lawsuit over the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s position on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). (Background on PACE and the controversy here.) California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced today that his agency is suing these entities in federal court over their unwillingness to …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother information gap in the Gulf
As the Washington Post points out today, BP’s Regional Oil Spill Response Plan (large file) for the Gulf of Mexico was, like the NEPA analysis and the ESA analysis, wildly over-optimistic. The Response Plan is more realistic than the NEPA documents with respect to the possibilities. It does include worst case scenarios (Appendix H). The …
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CONTINUE READINGOffshore drilling and endangered species — Part 1
Cross-posted at CPRBlog The media have paid a lot of attention to the cavalier attitude of the former Minerals Management Service (now called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement) toward the National Environmental Policy Act (I blogged about it here and here and Dan weighed in here). Less has been said, so …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Issues Decision in Monsanto case
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision today in Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, a case involving Monsanto’s efforts to introduce Roundup Ready Alfalfa, a genetically modified crop engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup. The Court, on a 7-1 vote (Stevens dissenting, Bryer recused), held in favor of Monsanto but did so in a way …
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CONTINUE READINGWe’ve Known the Risks in the Gulf for Forty Years
We’ve known all along that offshore drilling in the Gulf placed at risk exceptionally valuable and sensitive coastal areas. We need look no further than a forty-year-old court decision on Gulf oil drilling, which made the dangers abundantly clear. In 1971, President Nixon announced a new energy plan involving greatly expanded offshore drilling. In a …
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CONTINUE READINGHeads in sand, oil in water
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. As oil drifts on and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the closure of wildlife refuges and more fishing grounds, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has called a temporarily halt to new offshore drilling while his staff prepare a report on the disaster and even Republicans in Congress are calling for new …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Lesson from the BP Disaster: The Need for Better Risk Assessment
Apparently, the lease grant to BP was exempted from environmental review, according to the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin: The decision by the department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP’s lease at Deepwater Horizon a “categorical exclusion” from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 — and BP’s lobbying efforts just 11 …
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CONTINUE READINGEcology Law Quarterly, Volume 37, number 1
We have been remiss in not noting the publication in March of another issue of Ecology Law Quarterly. In this issue are the following articles: Managing the National Forests through Place-Based Legislation, Martin Nie & Michael Fiebig Read Article (PDF) A Comparative Guide to the Western States’ Public Trust Doctrines: Public Values, Private Rights, and …
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