Scholars Call Out Congressional Committee for 'Mythification' of NEPA
Tomorrow, anti-environmental members of the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing provocatively titled, "The Weaponization of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Implications of Environmental Lawfare" – yet another in a long line of conservatives' attempts to justify myriad legislative attacks against this bedrock environmental law. As more than 100 CPR Member Scholars and other academic leaders explain in a letter to committee members, though, the hearing would be more aptly titled "The Mythification of NEPA."
The apparent premise of the hearing is that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is being wielded as a "weapon" by public interest groups at the expense of responsible economic activity. Reality, as it so often does, does not corroborate the conservatives' narrative, however.
Rather, the scholars' letter marshals actual data and statistics that together show that relatively few actions covered by NEPA are ever subjected to "environmental impact statements" or EISs, the most rigorous procedure mandated under the law; that litigation over NEPA compliance is relatively rare, and what litigation does occur is comparable to instances of litigation in other administrative law contexts; and that, except in a few unusual cases, most NEPA procedures are resolved in a matter of a …
This post is part of a series about climate change and the increasing risk of floods releasing toxic chemicals from industrial facilities.
As Hurricane Harvey lingered over Texas in 2017, it created a wall of water that swallowed much of Houston. Catastrophic flooding over a wide swath of southern Texas left towns, cities, and the countryside under feet of water. The floodwaters sloshed toxic chemicals from the area's 10 oil and gas refineries, 500 chemical plants, and 12 Superfund sites around "like a wet mop," according to one resident who lives near the ExxonMobil refinery and chemical plant. The torrential rainwaters engulfed her home, and she was forced to swim with her four young children through a toxic soup that smelled like "a rotten sewer." Their exposure to contaminated floodwaters likely accounted for the skin and strep throat infections her children later developed. Rice University researchers …
An MIT professor has a great idea for a molten metal battery that could outperform lithium batteries. Of course, like many great ideas, this one might not pan out. But even if it does pan out technically, Grist explains one reason why it might never get to the commercial stage:
Ultimately, the thing that makes lithium-ion so tough to topple is something called the "experience curve." The curve maps how, over time, in many different sectors, increases in scale lead to a reliable and predictable decrease in price. It works for solar panels and semiconductors, even contact lenses and motorcycles, and it definitely works for lithium-ion batteries, says Chris Shelton, chief technical officer at energy company AES. In other words, every time you double the volume of lithium-ion battery production, you reduce the cost by more than 15 percent.
A 2017 paper by Liscow and Karpilow explains …
This morning, CPR Member Scholar and George Washington University Law Professor Emily Hammond is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial, and Antitrust Law at a hearing that will look at two highly flawed bills. While their particulars differ, each is conspicuously (if a bit clumsily) designed to rig the environmental permitting process to allow industry groups to ram through big infrastructure and construction projects while shutting out the public from its traditional and vital role of meaningful participation and engagement.
Hammond's testimony provides a devastating and thorough critique of each of the two bills under consideration – the Permitting Litigation Efficiency Act of 2018 (PLEA) (H.R. 5468) and the North Texas Water Supply Security Act of 2017 (H.R. 4423), respectively. The "problem" these bills try to "solve" is that existing administrative laws and procedures have a pesky …
CPR’s Member Scholars and staff are off to a fast start on the op-ed front in 2018. We list them all on our op-ed page, but here’s a quick roundup of pieces they’ve placed so far.
Member Scholar Alejandro Camacho joins his UC-Irvine colleague Michael Robinson-Dorn in a piece published by The Conversation. In "Turning power over to states won't improve protection for endangered species," they summarize their recent analysis of state endangered species laws and state funding for enforcement. They write, “Our review shows that most states are poorly positioned to assume primary responsibility for endangered species protection. State laws generally are weaker and less comprehensive than the Endangered Species Act,” and the states themselves are contributing just 5 percent of funding for enforcement of the Act.
In the Bay Journal, Rena Steinzor and David Flores update an op-ed from the end …
The Center for Progressive Reform has been closely watching the development and implementation of the Chesapeake Bay restoration plan since its inception. As part of our ongoing commitment to ensure the success of the plan, known as the Bay TMDL, we have developed a new web-based resource focused on the issues and decisions related to the TMDL's midpoint assessment process. The page is a one-stop shop for advocates, members of the media, and residents concerned about restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay, as well as the streams and landscapes throughout its watershed.
The page, "Halftime for the Bay," provides visitors with ongoing updates of the policy decisions made by EPA Region 3 and the state and federal partners in the Chesapeake Bay Program, as well as analysis of progress made by the states now that they have passed the 2017 interim deadline under the …
A new report in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A published earlier this week presents a suite of new scientific and policy research meant to improve and drive forward progress under the Paris Climate Agreement. The report – from the oldest science journal in the western world – is the culmination of presentations first delivered by attendees at the 25th anniversary conference of the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute. CPR Board President and Member Scholar Rob Verchick is among the contributing authors.
In his article, Verchick argues that the rise of global temperatures by an additional half a degree above the agreement's target could hamper our ability to address the unavoidable harms of climate change to the world's most vulnerable populations. In "Can Loss and Damage Carry the Load?" Verchick explains that developed nations have a moral and political obligation to address "the …
There are three important climate lawsuits pending in federal court. Here's the state of play and what to expect next.
In the first case, Oakland and San Francisco sued leading oil companies. They claim that the companies' production and sale of fossil fuels is a public nuisance under California state law. They seek an abatement fund to pay for sea walls and other infrastructure needed to address rising sea levels. This lawsuit was originally filed in California state court, but the defendants filed a motion to remove to federal court.
The federal judge ruled in favor of removal on the ground that the defendants' conduct fell under the federal common law of nuisance, not under state law. The judge certified that ruling for immediate appeal but did not stay proceedings in the trial court. The judge also rejected the argument that the federal common law in …
It's no secret that the Trump administration and coal companies have drawn a bullseye on reversing coal's declining fortunes in wholesale electricity markets, where competition and inexpensive natural gas have driven coal's market share down from 50 percent in 1990 to about 30 percent today. Feeling bullish about their prospects in a sympathetic administration, owners of coal and nuclear plants have tried to extract subsidies to prevent what they view as premature retirements of large power plants.
This January, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected the most overt bailout grab, a proposed rule originating from the Department of Energy (DOE) under an unusual process provided for in section 403 of the DOE Act. That proposal would have allowed plants that can store 90 days of fuel onsite (principally coal and nuclear plants) to recover all their costs – not normally the case in wholesale electricity markets that …
This post is part of an ongoing series on the midpoint assessment and long-term goals of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort.
In my last post, I described how a database housed by the Maryland Department of the Environment allows tracking of land development activities in real time. This database not only gives us the ability to track the recent scale and pattern of habitat destruction in Maryland, but it also can be used by regulators to build a tool that will allow the state to meet its commitment under the Chesapeake Bay restoration framework to account for and offset the growth in Bay pollution from new sources.
From a water quality perspective, land conversion involves two potential problems. The first problem comes from the destruction of the pre-development landscape, which is often natural and helps capture rain and filter pollutants before they can run off into the …
