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On May 20, 2022, the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) will implement revisions to current regulations governing the environmental analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, et seq., (“NEPA”). Specifically, CEQ will revise 40 C.F.R. § 1502.13, restoring detailed “purpose and need statements” in environmental impact statements (“EIS”); 40 C.F.R. § 1507.3, removing language that could be construed to limit local governmental agencies flexibility to develop and revise NEPA procedures to implement local agency specific programs; and 40 C.F.R. § 1508.1, definition of “environmental effects,” to restore the distinction between “direct, indirect and cumulative” effects.

The reason for the proposed changes lies with the dueling political and environmental concepts of the immediate past and current presidential administrations. In 2017, then President Trump issued Executive Order 13807, requiring CEQ to propose certain changes to then existing regulations. In January 2020, CEQ issued the new rules, making wholesale revisions to the original regulations that limit their applicability, and became effective on September 14, 2020. Immediately thereafter, on January 20, 2021, the new Administration issued Executive Order 13990 revoking the previous Administration’s Executive Order, and requiring CEQ to review and revise all regulations implemented between 2017 and 2020, i.e., those issued during the Trump Administration, to become consistent with later Executive Order 13990. The following constitutes the results of CEQ’s efforts toward “rectifying” the limitations on previous regulations, consistent with the intent underlying the original 1978 implementing regulations.Continue Reading The CEQ Tries to “Make a Silk Purse from a Sow’s Ear” by Revising NEPA Regulations

The California Court of Appeal last week reversed a lower court decision that would have indefinitely delayed the development by Newhall Land and Farming Company of 21,308 residential units, 629 acres of mixed use development, 67 acres of commercial use, 249 acres of business park, and 1,014 acres of open space in northwestern Los Angeles County over the next 25-30 years (“Project”).  The lower court’s decision had originally granted the Petition for Writ of Mandate brought by, among others, the Center for Biological Diversity (“Respondents”), challenging, among other actions by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (“DFW”) (“Appellant”), the revised Joint Federal/State Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (“EIS/EIR”) for the Project.

While the Appellate Court’s 112 page decision addressed numerous causes of action brought by Respondents in the trial court, one of the most unique and far reaching was its disposition of Respondents’ claim that the EIS/EIR’s baseline for assessing the cumulative impacts of the Project’s Greenhouse Gas (“GHG”) emissions is a procedural issue properly evaluated under the “failure to proceed in a manner required by law” standard, applicable to procedural actions, and that, employing the correct standard, the EIS/EIR’s analysis was predicated on an illusory baseline.  In a decision that is likely to be adopted in the adjudication of other California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) actions challenging the evolving state and federal GHG standards, the Appellate Court firmly disagreed. 
 Continue Reading Appellate Court Grants Wide Discretion to Newhall Land and Farming Project Proponents in the Determination of the Significance of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under CEQA

In what might be a surprising decision in any other Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in Barnes v. U.S. Dept. of Transportation, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Case No. 10-70718, August 25, 2011, which, while narrow, begins the process of eroding both the Federal Aviation Administration’s (“FAA”) long held position that “aviation activity . . . will increase at the same rate regardless of whether a new runway is built or not,” Barnes, at 16285, and the Federal Court’s traditional deference to it. City of Los Angeles v. FAA, 138 F.3d 806, 807-08, n. 2 (9th Cir. 1998).Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Calls FAA to Task on Environmental Impacts of New Runway

The Council on Environmental Quality, on February 18, 2010, proposed three substantive steps to “modernize and reinvigorate” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to Nancy Sutley, the Chair of the White House-based CEQ, these measures “will assist Federal agencies to meet the goals of NEPA, enhance the quality of public involvement in governmental decisions relating to the environment, increase transparency and ease implementation.”

These three steps include when and how Federal agencies must consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in their proposed actions; clarifying appropriateness of “Findings of No Significant Impact” and specifying when there is a need to monitor environmental mitigation commitments; and clarifying use of categorical exclusions. The CEQ is requesting public comment on all three of the draft guidances.

The Effects of Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Must be Considered in the NEPA Process

Perhaps the most critical element to this modernization of the NEPA process is the CEQ’s draft guidance on when and how Federal agencies must consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in their proposed actions. According to the CEQ:Continue Reading CEQ’s Steps to Modernize and Reinvigorate NEPA Includes Reporting on Climate Change Effects of Federal Actions

In a rather odd, unusual statement, the FAA issued on July 31, 2008, a "Record of Decision and Written Re-Evaluation of the New YorkNew JerseyPhiladelphia Metropolitan Area Airspace Redesign Final Environmental Impact Statement."  In response to several requests for supplemental EIS to deal with the congestion management orders for JFK, LaGuardia and Newark,…