Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

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 investigation of the troubled Minerals Management Service.

Clearly, things didn’t go as planned on the Deepwater Horizon. Notwithstanding Rush Limbaugh’s wild accusations of environmentalist sabotage, no one has seriously suggested that the fire, the sinking of the rig, and the failure of the blowout preventer were anything but accidental. But that’s far from the end of the story. Accidents are not always unforeseeable or unpreventable. BP, its contractors, the Minerals Management Service, and the Coast Guard could have and should have foreseen the possibility of a blowout, but …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is the nation’s look-before-you-leap environmental law, intended to make sure that we understand what environmental problems we might result before we act. To that end, federal agencies must prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) before they take, authorize, or provide funding for actions that may have significant adverse environmental impacts. Useful as NEPA analysis is, the Deepwater Horizon disaster vividly illustrates the need to fix one of its shortcomings.

The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) oversees NEPA compliance. It has issued regulations prescribing how agencies should prepare EISs and what should be in those documents. The regulations are almost unchanged since they were originally issued during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, with one conspicuous exception. Where the impacts are uncertain or unknown, the regulations used to require that the EIS “include a worst case …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

Last week, I reported on EPA’s proposed veto of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit for a major mountaintop removal coal mining project in West Virginia. My view at the time was something along the lines of two-and-a-half cheers. I wrote that it was very good news, but didn’t articulate principals for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable mountaintop removal. Setting the proposed veto next to approval of the Hobet 45 project in January, EPA had not exactly ended confusion about the review of mountaintop removal projects, as Council on Environmental Quality chief Nancy Sutley had promised last summer when the administration unveiled a coordinated review procedure.

I spoke too soon.  EPA has now issued detailed guidance for its review of Appalachian surface coal mining operations, and its a doozy. Actually, it shouldn’t be remarkable; its a straightforward and careful …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

EPA’s seesaw on mountaintop removal mining continues. Last time I wrote about this topic it was to note EPA’s approval of the Hobet 45 project. Today, EPA announced that it is proposing to veto the Spruce No. 1 project, as it had threatened last fall. Should EPA follow through on its proposal, this would be its first veto of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit since 1990. Publication of the proposal in the Federal Register will start a 60-day public comment period, and EPA has promised to schedule a public hearing on the proposal, which is certain to prove controversial.

Indeed, the Coal Tattoo blog reports that Congressman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) has already announced his strong disagreement with the proposal:

“This is an unprecedented, unjustified and undeserved decision and I completely disagree with it as I told EPA Administrator …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

Last August, Dan announced “The Death of Yucca Mountain,” pointing to a news story in which Senator Harry Reid ( D – Nev.) declared that he had dealt a fatal blow to plans to store high-level radioactive waste in a repository there.

The Department of Energy sought to pull the plug on the project once and for all early this month, when it filed a motion to withdraw its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license for a Yucca Mountain geological repository. The motion declares that

the Secretary of Energy has decided that a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain is not a workable option for long-term disposition of these materials.

It seeks dismissal of the application with prejudice,

because DOE does not intend ever to refile an application to construct a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at …

Cross-posted from Legal Planet.

As Cara and Dan have explained, ocean acidification is the other big climate change problem. As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, more CO2 dissolves in the oceans. That in turn increases ocean acidity, which changes the ecology of the seas, most obviously by reducing the ability of corals and a variety of other marine organisms to build their “skeletons” and protective shells from calcium carbonate.

Ocean acidification is a pollution problem, just as acid rain and climate change are. So just as the Clean Air Act ought to have something to say about atmospheric dumping of greenhouse gases, the Clean Water Act should have something to say about the accumulation of CO2 in the oceans. (Note: I’m not saying these first-generation pollution control laws are the best way to deal with climate change, but they do provide some tools that are worth trying …