Public Lands
The Assault on NEPA: A Threat Assessment
National Environmental Policy Act
NEPA is under multiple attacks. Which are the most serious?
NEPA, the law governing environmental impact statements, is under concerted assault from Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court. As we will see, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Seven County Infrastructure Case is probably the biggest problem. Notably, the debate over NEPA has taken place without much hard data about its effectiveness or costs, so everyone seems free to make their own assumptions.
CONTINUE READINGData Center Permitting: A Roadmap
AI is fueling a surge in data center construction. Here’s what you need to know.
Data Centers have significant environmental footprints, which is going to raise several permitting issues except for those using clean energy sources. The permitting issue are mapped out in this post. The Trump Administration is clearly going to do its best to free the industry from environmental limits. We’ll see how successful that is going to be.
CONTINUE READINGListing Trump’s Environment and Energy Executive Orders
I’m counting 35 so far. But I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that I’d missed something.
I’ve put together a list of all the Trump 2.0 executive orders that I could identify dealing with environment or energy. Just to keep you reading, I should tell you that the most important ones are near the end. Whatever you might say about Trump, no one can question his zeal for eliminating environmental protections.
CONTINUE READINGA Pale Echo of the Sagebrush Rebellion
The latest failed effort at privatization of federal lands shows the modern political weakness of land transfer movements
Republican Utah Senator Lee’s effort to sell significant amounts of federal land through the reconciliation bill is dead – he withdrew his proposal last week. I want to contrast the modern efforts at privatization with another era of calls for transfer of federal lands, the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s. Like Senator Lee’s effort, as …
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CONTINUE READINGThe “Big Beautiful Bill” is One Damn Dirty Deal
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
My family is about to take a road trip. Out our window we will see beaches, lakes, and a whole lot of public land that would be eligible to be sold off to developers and corporations under the recent version of a budget bill that Republicans want to rush through this week. Welcome to The …
Continue reading “The “Big Beautiful Bill” is One Damn Dirty Deal”
CONTINUE READINGIt’s back.
Land sale provisions are back in reconciliation. And they are far worse than before.
Last time I posted on this topic, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives was considering a provision to sell or dispose of public lands in Utah and Nevada, arguably on the grounds of facilitating needed housing production around growing metropolitan areas. That provision was criticized across the political spectrum, received opposition from a …
CONTINUE READINGPay to Play
The reconciliation bill has a new approach to try and change substantive law
I posted earlier about a provision in the House reconciliation bill that attempts to effectively repeal NEPA by allowing sponsors of projects to pay a fee to avoid any judicial review of NEPA documents. That provision is not unique, and indeed it looks like House Republicans are trying to develop a new tool to use …
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CONTINUE READINGReconciliation and public lands
Most changes would be to the leasing process for oil and gas development and reflect a partisan response to ping-pong governance
As the Senate takes up the House’s version of the reconciliation bill, I wanted to briefly summarize the main provisions that relate to public lands – in part so readers can be aware of the state of play as to what might (or might not) come to pass in the Senate. The bill as passed …
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CONTINUE READINGGiving Away the National Parks?
Another Trump Administration idea that probably requires Congressional action, and thus probably won’t happen
Another national park idea the Trump Administration had recently was to offload hundreds of national parks to states and local governments, in order to trim $900 million from the Park Service budget. The proposal is spare on details, only calling for the “transfer [of] certain properties to State-level management.” Secretary of the Interior Burgum stated …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Rock
Public lands law stands in the way of Trump’s proposal to reopen Alcatraz
About a month ago, President Trump floated the idea of reopening the federal prison at Alcatraz. The prison has been closed for decades, and it is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, managed by the National Park Service, and a major tourist attraction. While a lot of the press coverage focused on …
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