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How Environmental Litigation Has Turned Pipelines Into Pipe Dreams
Proposed oil and gas pipelines have faced a myriad of legal challenges in the past several years. Even where pipeline proponents have prevailed, the cost and delay of protracted litigation has often caused cancellation of pipeline projects. In addition, presidential transitions have led to abrupt reversals of pipeline policies, which courts have often reviewed skeptically.
Amending the NEPA Regulations
The Joe Biden Administration has proposed reversing a number of the Donald Trump Administration’s changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations by again requiring federal agencies to evaluate the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impacts of projects under environmental review. On April 20, 2022, the first phase of those amendments was finalized, and on April 21, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts to explore the changes to NEPA implementation, and how they might impact climate change policy and environmental justice.
Bohon v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The D.C. Circuit affirmed a district court's dismissal of landowners' challenge to FERC's authority to grant pipeline certificates. The landowners asked the district court to declare that Congress' delegation of authority to FERC was unconstitutional and that all past certificates were void, and sou...
Belmont Municipal Light Department v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions to review FERC's order approving the Independent System Operator for New England's (ISO-NE's) tariff revisions that compensated power plants for maintaining up to three days' worth of fuel on-site to generate electricity during winter mon...
Salisbury, North Carolina v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The D.C. Circuit upheld FERC's approval of a dam operator's flood protection plan for a nearby water pump station in North Carolina. A city petitioned for review of FERC's approval of the plan, a state-imposed condition of its water quality certification under the CWA, which involved raising the pum...