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By Dana Drugmand •
Friday, January 10, 2020 - 17:36
Industry groups including oil
and gas trade associations were quick to pile on the praise following President
Trump’s announcement Thursday, January 9 of major overhauls to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The 50-year-old bedrock environmental statute requires federal agencies to
review the environmental impacts of major actions or projects, and has been a
key tool for advocacy groups to challenge harmful infrastructure, from fossil
fuel pipelines to chemical plants.
And in the Trump
administration’s hasty efforts to assert “energy dominance,” judges have halted
fossil fuel projects on grounds that the government did not adequately consider
how those projects contribute to climate change.
For the fossil fuel industry, these court rulings, and the environmental law underpinning them,
are an annoying setback. The industry has long been irked by NEPA,
especially when it is used to delay petroleum-related projects because of
climate concerns. In 2010, for example, the American
Petroleum Institute commented in a blog post on the Bureau of Land Management delaying an
oil and gas lease sale following a NEPA lawsuit that required the
agency to study the leases’ climate impacts. “API hopes the review can be
done quickly and allow the sale to be held later this year,” API wrote.
“Furthermore, API believes that neither NEPA, nor other
administrative tools, should be used to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions.”
On Thursday, the Trump
administration announced major revisions to the NEPA statute that
shrink the scope and timeline of environmental review. Under new
regulations proposed by the Center for Environmental Quality, the
White House agency that implements NEPA, “cumulative effects” — such as
how fossil fuel expansion contributes to climate change — would not need to
be considered.
The term “effects” is
clarified to exclude “effects that the agency has no authority to prevent or
would happen even without the agency action.” This essentially eliminates
climate change from being a concern that agencies must consider under NEPA.
The proposed regulations also facilitate “efficiency” by encouraging
categorical exclusions (meaning more projects will not even have to undergo
review) and by setting time limits of two years maximum to complete reviews,
regardless of the project’s complexity.
Fossil Fuel Promoters
Cheer NEPA Changes
Groups representing fossil
fuel interests celebrated the announcement. “Reforming the NEPA process
is a critical step toward meeting growing demand for cleaner energy and
unlocking job-creating infrastructure projects currently stuck in a maze of red
tape,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers said. API is the nation’s largest oil and gas
trade group.
The Independent Petroleum
Association of America (IPAA) lauded the decision, while also disparaging
environmentalists’ efforts to invoke the law. “IPAA is pleased that the
Administration continues to tackle substantial projects, such as their effort
to return the NEPA process to the original intent and scope of the
law,” said Dan Naatz, senior vice president of Government
Relations and Political Affairs at IPAA. “Although IPAA and our
members recognize the important role NEPA plays in public land
policy, for many years we have seen the law being abused by environmentalists
with extreme agendas to delay and halt various multiple-use activities on
federal lands, including oil and gas production.”
American Energy
Alliance (AEA) president Thomas Pyle, a former Koch Industries lobbyist,
also alleged that environmentalists have abused NEPA. “Radical
environmental groups have twisted the intent behind NEPA and
leveraged the legal system to their advantage in a coordinated effort to slow
and stop progress and I welcome the news that President Trump plans stop them
in his commitment to make America great again,” Pyle said. AEA is the advocacy arm of the
nonprofit Institute for Energy Research, whose funding has
included API, Koch family foundations, and ExxonMobil.
The National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose members include companies
like ExxonMobil and Chevron and which in 2017 launched an initiative attacking
climate liability lawsuits, also applauded the NEPA overhaul announcement. NAM President
and CEO Jay Timmons was at the White House on Thursday supporting
the president.
A statement from Timmons following this announcement
mentions a NAM blueprint for infrastructure improvements that
specifically called for overhauling NEPA. “The NAM’s Building to
Win infrastructure plan called for exactly this type of modernization —
because our efforts should be used for building the infrastructure Americans
desperately need, not wasted on mountains of paperwork and endless delays,”
Timmons said. This remark reveals that industry groups have been gunning
for NEPA reforms for a while. NAM’s “Building to Win” strategy
was first released in 2016.
Law Changes on the
Industry Wishlist
In 2018, groups like IPAA and
the American
Fuel & Petrochemical Association (AFPM) submitted comments as part of CEQ’s Advanced Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking regarding updating NEPA regulations. These groups
complained that the current NEPA process is excessively burdensome
and costly — concerns that President Trump and CEQ head Mary
Neumayr repeated on Thursday — and they made recommendations
like limiting the scope of NEPA analyses that CEQ readily adopted.
But industry trade
associations did not limit their NEPA demands to formal comment
periods. In November of last year, a coalition of 33 organizations wrote a
letter to CEQ urging the agency to “expeditiously proceed with
revisions to modernize NEPA implementing regulations.”
A few weeks later, the National Petroleum Council, an
advisory organization made up of oil and gas executives and other petroleum
stakeholders, issued a report on
“America’s Evolving Oil and Natural Gas Transportation Infrastructure.” The
report notes that “NEPA has become a leading basis for challenging agency
decisions affecting energy infrastructure,” and calls for significant clarification and overhaul
of NEPA.
President Trump has now
delivered on the industry groups’ demand to weaken a key environmental law.
“Today, we’re taking another historic step in our campaign to slash job-killing
regulations and improve the quality of life for all of our citizens,” the
president said at the announcement.
Democrats and Green Groups
Bash Rule Changes
Environmental groups and
Democratic lawmakers slammed the proposal, saying it would hurt citizens and
that real beneficiaries are the polluting industries seeking to expedite
harmful projects.
“Today’s action is nothing
more than an attempt to write Donald Trump’s climate denial into official
government policy,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.
“Communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate
change, but rather than protect them, Trump is pulling out all the stops to
silence their voices and further prop up his corporate polluter friends.”
“The Trump administration
would allow powerful industries, like oil and gas extractors, to run roughshod
over community interests,” added Dr. Kathleen Rest, executive director of the
Union of Concerned Scientists.
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)
weighed in on the announcement with a statement under the headline, “Trump Caves to Fossil
Fuels in Roll-Back of Bedrock Environmental Protection Law.” Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-RI) also called out the fossil fuel industry’s influence. “We
didn’t need more proof that the fossil fuel industry has hardwired the Trump
administration to deliver on its interests, but we got it anyway,”
Whitehouse said.
While industry is cheering the
announcement, the actual changes to NEPA may be a ways off. The
public has until March 10 to comment on CEQ’s Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking, and CEQ still has to hold public hearings
on the proposed changes. Lawsuits challenging the regulations are
also likely.
“We will use every tool in our
toolbox to stop this dangerous move and safeguard our children’s future,”
Natural Resources Defense Council president, and former EPA administrator,
Gina McCarthy said.
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