NEPA
Updating the Delta litigation line-up
The era of collaboration and cooperation that CalFed briefly brought to management of California’s water system is well and truly over. Lawsuits are multiplying like rabbits, promising to provide full employment for water and natural resource lawyers in California for the foreseeable future. For those of you scoring at home, here are some of the …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and Environmental Impact Statements
Government agencies are struggling with how to fit climate change into the process of environmental review. At one level, this is a no-brainer. Greenhouse gases contribute to climate change, and climate change is the biggest environmental impact of all. But as always, the devil is in the details.
CONTINUE READINGRediscovering the Lost Promise of NEPA
NEPA — the National Environmental Policy Act — is the forgotten elderly relative of environmental law. Its requirement of environmental impact statements is now frequently avoided by a clever workaround. Rather than issuing an environmental impact statement, an agency adopts mitigation measures that are supposed to reduce the legal of environmental impacts below the trigger …
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CONTINUE READINGA Belated Victory for the Bush Administration
The Fourth Circuit has upheld the Army Corp permit program for mountaintop mining, notwithstanding claims that the Corps had violated NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and its own regulations. According to the dissent: Today’s decision will have far-reaching consequences for the environment of Appalachia. It is not disputed that the impact of filling valleys and …
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CONTINUE READINGCan NEPA save the world?
New Scientist‘s blog, Short Sharp Science, reports that repairs on the proton-smashing Large Hadron Collider at Europe’s CERN may be complete by September. What’s the environmental law connection? You might recall that before the LHC was briefly fired up in September 2008 (it only worked for 9 days before crashing), a lawsuit was filed in …
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