Search Results for: NEPA
No Restrictive Language on Gene Drives
Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity reject a moratorium-like decision
The recent news in international environmental negotiations has been dominated by this month’s Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (See UCLA’s Ted Parson setting the stage, the New York Times article, and Carbon Brief’s detailed report.) The recent COP of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) flew somewhat under the …
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CONTINUE READINGMore great environmental and energy law scholarship
Some of the best articles in the field from 2016-17
Some of our readers may be interested in what is happening in environmental and energy legal scholarship. So I thought I’d post again (I also did this in 2016) about the Land Use & Environment Law Review, which is Thomson Reuters/West Publishing’s peer-selected annual compendium of significant legal scholarship in land use and environmental law. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Trump Administration Is On An Environmental Losing Streak
Courts Continue to Strike Down Anti-Environmental Actions
While the Trump Administration’s assault on the environment is alarming, courts are continuing to hand the administration an impressive string of losses that mean that, at least in the short term, the assault is much less effective than the administration’s claims of deregulating the economy would lead us all to believe. In just the …
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CONTINUE READINGSecretary Zinke Misleads the Public About Wildfires and Federal Public Land Management
Secretary of Interior’s Op-Ed Ignores Science and Land-Use Planning to Falsely Blame Wildfire Risk on “Radical Environmentalists”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke published an op-ed today calling for “active management” of our federal public lands to reduce wildfire risk, and blaming “radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods” for the prevalance and lethality of wildfires in the American West. Zinke’s op-ed is disingenuous, …
CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Sage Grouse Plan Revisions
BLM and Forest Service produce draft environmental impact statements for plan revisions
I wrote in the fall about the Trump Administration’s efforts to weaken protections for sage grouse on federal public lands. The next step in that process is currently ongoing – draft environmental impact statements (EIS) for revisions to land management plans for BLM and Forest Service lands. Those EISs are required by the National Environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGAttempting to Close the Floodgates of Litigation
Can Congress prevent state and federal courts from hearing WaterFix lawsuits?
The journey of California’s proposed delta tunnels project (also known as California WaterFix) has been anything but straightforward and already faces a slew of ongoing legal challenges.[i] Last week, Congress added a different kind of twist when the proposed Department of Interior budget for FY 2019 was introduced in the House Appropriations Committee. The relevant …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Fire Appropriations and 2018 Omnibus
2018 Omnibus bill expands future funding for fire suppression efforts, and streamlines environmental review for some timber projects
Tom Schumann helped draft this blog post. The 2018 budget act signed into law on March 23, 2018 will increase the funding available for wildfire suppression, enabling the Forest Service and Interior Department to respond to ever more severe fires while easing the strain on their overall budgets. Before the new law, Congress limited appropriations …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Social Cost of Carbon – Revisited
The case for using global rather than simply U.S. impacts.
The estimated harm done by a single ton of carbon in the atmosphere – the “social cost of carbon” — is a key factor in setting climate policy. The Trump Administration is trying to get its estimate as close to zero as possible. A key part of this effort is to exclude from consideration the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Administration’s offshore oil and gas leasing proposal
Offshore leasing system requires long, complex legal process before drilling can occur
A few weeks ago the Trump Administration announced a new proposed plan to drastically increase the amount of offshore areas available for leasing for oil and gas development – essentially opening up almost all of the waters off of the lower 48 states. The announcement at the time attracted a lot of media attention, but …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
Interior Department proposes to authorize road through wildlife refuge in Alaska
Tom Schumann authored this blog post. News outlets report that the Interior Department, reversing a decision made under President Obama, has agreed to a land exchange with an Alaska Native village that would allow construction of a road across a national wildlife refuge that provides important habitat for migratory birds, bears, caribou, and other species. …
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