In a surprising decision, Surface Transportation Board Decision, Docket No. FD35861, December 12, 2014 (“Docket”), the Federal Surface Transportation Board (“Board”) ruled that the application of the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”), Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21000, et seq., to the 114 mile high-speed passenger rail line between Fresno and Bakersfield, California is preempted in its entirety by federal law. The Board’s decision is not only surprising in the context of prevailing legal authority, but also potentially important in the context of other modes of transportation.
Interstate
California Once Again Relinquishes Clean Air Act Enforcement Responsibility to the Federal Government
On October 24, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published its final rule documenting the failure of the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) to submit a State Implementation Plan (“SIP”) revision containing measures to control California’s significant contribution to the nonattainment, or interference with maintenance, of the 2006 24 hour fine particulate matter (“PM2.5”) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) in other states (“Interstate Transport SIP”).
Judge Blocks City of Santa Monica’s Latest Effort to Close the Santa Monica Airport
Predictably, Judge John Walter of the Los Angeles Federal District Court summarily dismissed a lawsuit brought by the City of Santa Monica (“Santa Monica”) aimed at closing the Santa Monica Airport, based on, among other things, unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation. The court’s decision was made on the procedural grounds that, among other things, the lawsuit was brought too late and in the wrong court.
First, the court found that Santa Monica had brought the suit after the applicable 12 year statute of limitations had expired. 28 U.S.C. § 2409(a)(g). The court’s rationale was that Santa Monica knew as long ago as 1948 that the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) had a residual claim to the property arising from the Deed of Transfer of the federal government’s lease back to the City of Santa Monica. That residual claim, therefore, required that Santa Monica’s suit be brought no later than the early 1960s.
In addition, the court found that, even if a claim for unconstitutional taking could be sustained under the applicable statute of limitations, it was improperly brought in the District Court, as the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1) vests exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over monetary claims against the federal government exceeding $10,000 with the Court of Federal Claims. Santa Monica does not, of course, dispute that the value of the airport property that it wishes to recover and use for other purposes exceeds $10,000.
Although the court chose the procedural route in making its decision, there appear to be relevant substantive grounds as well.
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Local Land Use Restrictions on Hydraulic Fracturing Upheld in Pennsylvania
On July 26, 2012, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania overturned a Pennsylvania statute preempting the right of local jurisdictions to impose land use restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” within their boundaries. Unlike courts in the States of Ohio and Colorado, the court in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al., 2012 WL 3030277 (2012) held that the Pennsylvania statute violates the “basic precept that ‘land use restrictions designate districts in which only compatible uses are allowed and incompatible uses are excluded.’” Id. at 15, quoting City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc., 514 U.S. 725, 732-33 (1995). Fracking involves the high pressure injection of water and sand carrying certain chemicals into rocks in which is concealed deposits of oil and gas. Residents near fracking sites have complained of, among other things, pollution of the underground water supply, and increasing instability and subsidence of structures undermined by the process. Supporters of the Pennsylvania law claimed that it provides the uniformity of regulation necessary for the successful continuation of Pennsylvania’s relatively new and profitable fracking industry. Critics, however, take the position that removing local restrictions on the fracking would be to undermine decades of rational development, and open the door to the “pig in the parlor” to which the Supreme Court referred in upholding local zoning originally in Euclid v. Ambler, 272 U.S. 365 (1926).
The implication of these differences ranges far beyond Pennsylvania, because, among other reasons, the positions taken over local regulation of fracking do not differ notably from those taken with respect to local regulation of airport impacts.
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