Latest news with #NEPA
The Hill
15 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Environmental groups sue to block ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
A coalition of environmental groups on Friday sued over Trump administration plans to build a new detention center in the Everglades that critics have dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz.' The suit seeks to block the Trump administration from building the new facility on a Florida airfield, the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport (TNT) near Big Cypress National Preserve. 'This massive detention center will blight one of the most iconic ecosystems in the world,' Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. 'This reckless attack on the Everglades — the lifeblood of Florida — risks polluting sensitive waters and turning more endangered Florida panthers into roadkill. It makes no sense to build what's essentially a new development in the Everglades for any reason, but this reason is particularly despicable.' Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has cited the remote nature of the area — as well as its proximity to dangerous wildlife — as top features for tapping the area for construction. 'This 30-square mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades. It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter,' he said. 'If people get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.' Environmental groups have argued the project violates the National Environmental Policy Act as well as procedures for rulemaking. 'The decision to construct a mass migrant detention and deportation center at the TNT Site was made without conducting any environmental reviews as required under NEPA, without public notice or comment, and without compliance with other federal statutes such as the Endangered Species Act, or state or local land-use laws,' they wrote in the suit filed in federal court in Florida. The facility is projected to cost about $450 million a year, which will come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program that was used to house asylum-seekers during the Biden administration. The Trump administration is largely envisioning the facility as a series of tents along with the construction of other facilities, hoping to house as many as 5,000 migrants at the facility.
The Hill
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hill
The Supreme Court is reining in lower-court overreach on the environment
On May 29, the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County curbed lower courts' ability to micromanage federal agencies' environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act. This landmark ruling frees agencies from decades of defensive, litigation-averse mindsets, boosting prospects for projects critical to addressing urgent economic and environmental challenges. The case centered on a proposed Utah railroad to connect the Uinta Basin's growing oil (and potentially mineral) production to the national rail network. To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Surface Transportation Board had produced a 3,600-page environmental impact statement that thoroughly analyzed alternative options, mitigation strategies and public input. It then concluded that the project's benefits outweighed its environmental costs and issued an approval. Environmental groups and a Colorado county promptly challenged the decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, alleging that the Surface Transportation Board failed to adequately assess several environmental impacts, including those related to downstream oil refining and upstream drilling. The D.C. Circuit sided with several claims and vacated the approval. The Supreme Court, which hadn't addressed a National Environmental Policy Act case since 2004, saw a need for course correction. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh's incisive opinion noted, 'A 1970 legislative acorn has grown into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development.' Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act to balance resource use, high living standards and a healthy environment, not to stifle progress. Yet, activist groups have weaponized it as a 'blunt and haphazard tool' to push unpopular policy agendas through litigation, undermining the law's effectiveness and skirting the democratic process. Kavanaugh's opinion clarified two key points. First, the National Environmental Policy Act is a 'procedural cross-check' in which agencies have substantial deference in how they evaluate environmental impacts. The judiciary's sole role is to confirm that agencies address environmental impacts and feasible alternatives, not to police their methods or paralyze projects. Second, agencies need not assess the environmental effects of separate projects, though they remain accountable for directly connected impacts — for example, of how runoff in a project might affect a fish population miles downstream. These clarifications are transformative. By rebuking dubious precedents set by lower courts, the Supreme Court has set agency reviewers free from an impossible situation wherein, as the Property and Environment Research Center noted, 'NEPA obligations could balloon as widely as the most creative plaintiff demands.' No longer sitting ducks for deep-pocketed green litigators, agencies can now move beyond 'litigation-proofing' their reviews. The days of an environmental impact statement averaging 4.5 years and 669 pages, with appendices topping 1,037 pages, should be over. Taxpayers will save money, large projects will become more viable and whole industries (e.g. mining) will come back to life. The only losers here are groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians, for whom grinding National Environmental Policy Act litigation was a cash cow. Although oil was the subject of this specific case, all forms of energy will benefit. As Kavanaugh pointed out, environmental groups have used this statute to 'fight even clean-energy projects — from wind farms to hydroelectric dams, from solar farms to geothermal wells.' The nuclear industry was arguably the highest-profile victim of the National Environmental Policy Act weaponization. The first major case, a 1971 D.C. Circuit challenge to a reactor's environmental impact study, resulted in an 18-month nationwide moratorium on reactor construction. This was the first devastating blow to the nuclear industry, which crumbled over the next decade and is still struggling to recover. This decision will also boost our country's capacity to mitigate the wildfire crisis. Forest management projects are the most common subject of National Environmental Policy Act litigation, according to a Breakthrough Institute study. The Property and Environment Research Center found that prescribed burns requiring an environmental impact study take an average of 7.2 years to implement. Ironically, despite their apparent concern about trains sparking wildfires in the Uinta Basin, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians all have extensive track records of obstructing mitigation projects in forests that eventually fall victim to extreme wildfires. For example, the Center for Biological Diversity delayed a U.S. Forest Service forest thinning project that, if completed on schedule, could have saved the California town of Grizzly Flats, which was mostly decimated by the Caldor Fire in 2021. By removing this poison from the regulatory well, the Supreme Court has begun to clear the path to tackling our most pressing energy and environmental challenges. But the court can only do so much. The core of the National Environmental Policy Act's legislative text is still largely the same as it was in 1970. Congress needs to resolve its vulnerabilities as part of a comprehensive permitting reform, and codifying durable limits to judicial review should be a top priority. Fortunately, the Supreme Court just delivered a clear signal that it is time to act. Patrick Hynes is a fellow with ConservAmerica.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Residents and businesses preparing for Saturday's protests
SCRANTON, LACKAWNNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)— With the protests in Los Angeles taking a violent turn, many are left to wonder how the situation escalated so quickly. And with more protests happening nationwide this weekend, could what's happening in LA also happen here in Northeast PA? 28/22 News reporter Avery Nape was in Scranton talking to residents and business owners to see how they are feeling ahead of the protest in the Electric City this weekend. Hundreds of protests will be happening across the country Saturday, including right here on courthouse square in downtown Scranton. It's all part of what organizers are calling the 'No Kings' movement. Public voices opinion on Wilkes-Barre mural While this is a nationwide movement, several protests will be happening right here in NEPA. Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Tunkhannock, and Bloomsburg to name a few. So far more than 200 people have responded on Facebook as attending the protest in Scranton. Organizers describe the movement as a 'national day of defiance' against President Trump and what they call 'attacking civil rights and slashing services.' Residents and business owners I spoke with in Scranton say they are not concerned with the protests though, in fact, they welcome them. 'I think a lot of the talk of violence is overblown and intended to intimidate people and to keep them home, and it should be the opposite,' voiced Scranton resident Mary Murphy. 'When the people come over here, even for protest, but then everybody has to eat. So everybody can spend some money to other stores, you know what I mean,' stated Vito Sparacio, owner, Pizza by Pappas. According to the movement's website the 'No Kings' protests are non-violent events. They say anyone planning to attend should seek to de-escalate any potential confrontations. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
E&E News
13-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
White House reviewing NEPA plans across agencies
The White House is reviewing proposed rules from a host of federal agencies that would dictate how the government implements the National Environmental Policy Act, the nation's magna carta of environmental laws. The Office of Management and Budget received proposed interim final rules from agencies including the departments of Energy, Interior and Defense, and one final rule from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for NEPA 'implementing procedures,' according to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs dashboard. The reviews mark another step in the Trump administration's bid to overhaul how the federal government conducts environmental reviews at a quick pace, a move that's drawing criticism from environmental groups. Advertisement In February, the Trump White House scrapped decades' worth of rules at the Council on Environmental Quality that governed how agencies conduct reviews under NEPA for power plants, pipelines and other energy projects. In its place, the administration offered up voluntary guidance that legal experts noted was light on details.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US Supreme Court sparks backlash after ruling in favor of controversial railroad project: 'Endangers local communities'
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a blow to environmentalists, siding with a railroad expansion in Utah to help transport crude oil. As the Guardian reported, the court ruled unanimously in favor of the railroad, deciding that the original lower court based its ruling to stop the railroad on an environmental impact assessment that was too limited in scope. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the expansion of the Uinta Basin Railway would add around 88 miles of track and could connect oil suppliers with a wider market, such as refining facilities on the Gulf Coast. The project was approved in 2021 but paused in 2023 after multiple parties challenged it. The recent ruling to continue the project worries environmentalists around the country. It challenges protections that have held since the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA sets forth a process for agencies to assess the environmental, social, and economic impact of a particular project, followed by a period of public review and community comments. Siding with the railroad expansion could challenge environmental protection precedents. Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America's director of climate justice, said, "The Supreme Court's decision endangers local communities, many of them Indigenous and rural, in favor of the dirty energy status quo," per the Guardian. The Supreme Court decision is a danger to communities around the railway. For one, the transported oil poses a large threat to the Colorado River, its ecosystem, and the communities it serves if the train derails or oil spills, as The Colorado Sun reported. Communities can be exposed to pollutants from a variety of industrial activities. One of the most famous instances is the story of Erin Brockovich, who began a legal case against Pacific Gas and Electric Company regarding groundwater contamination in California. Do you think your city has good air quality? Definitely Somewhat Depends on the time of year Not at all Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Pollution impacts communities around the world every day. Air pollution health risks include respiratory issues, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. Polluted water can cause a variety of gastrointestinal issues, skin conditions, and cancers. "Our bedrock environmental laws, like NEPA, are meant to ensure people are protected from corporate polluters. … Today's decision will undoubtedly help the fossil fuel industry," said Sierra Club senior attorney Nathaniel Shoaff. Most often, marginalized groups bear the brunt of environmental hazards and pollution. With mass layoffs in key government organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists and experts warn of repercussions for the health of people and the environment. Organizations like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity are working to protect the people and environments most impacted by corporate decisions like this railroad expansion. Voting for political leaders who recognize the serious nature of the changing climate and its effects, regardless of which side of the political aisle they fall on, is also vital to continuing to protect the environment. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
