The Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling upholding BLM's approval of a development project on state and federal land in southwestern Wyoming. Conservation groups argued BLM violated NEPA by failing to adequately consider impacts of the project on sage-grouse populations and pronghorn antel...
The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Army Corps of Engineers in a challenge to its decision to continue an over century-old project that involves building river training structures to maintain the navigable channel in the Middle Mississippi River. Environmental groups argued that th...
In How Algorithm-Assisted Decisionmaking Is Influencing Environmental Law and Climate Adaptation, Ziaja provides a useful framework to analyze whether an algorithm-assisted decisionmaking (AADM) tool and its design process is procedurally equitable. Ziaja’s framework contains several different questions advocacy groups can use to analyze the AADM tools that are increasingly used for environmental resource governance, such as the INFORM and RESOLVE algorithms discussed in the article, which guide the allocation and distribution of water and energy resources.
Environmental, natural resource, and energy planning will continue to rely on increasingly complex algorithms. Are these processes then also doomed to be inaccessible to key stakeholders? Hopefully not. There are multiple steps to ensuring process and participatory equity. There is ease of access to the process, access to necessary information, and then there is the matter of having the right information to be able to meaningfully impact outcomes of algorithm-assisted decisionmaking processes.
Agencies responsible for water and energy systems increasingly rely on algorithm-assisted decisionmaking to regulate these systems and shepherd them through climate adaptation. Legal scholars, attorneys, and environmental equity advocates should care about this fundamental change in governance for three reasons. First, climate adaptation depends on these tools. Second, algorithmic tools are not policy-neutral; rather they embed value-laden assumptions and biases. And third, the “rules” of this new forum impede equity and democratic participation, without deliberate countermeasures.
A district court granted a pipeline company's motion to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of an Iowa county zoning ordinance promulgated in response to the company's proposed carbon dioxide pipeline. The company argued the ordinance was preempted by the federal Pipeline Safety Act and by Iowa Code §...
A district court denied summary judgment for environmental groups in their challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a navigation improvement project in San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico. The groups sued the Corps, NMFS, and FWS, arguing they violated the ESA, NEPA, and the CWA. With respec...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction a challenge to two FERC orders approving construction and operation of a natural gas compressor station in Massachusetts. Residents, municipalities, and an environmental group petitioned for review of the orders—one granting the station owner's r...
In an unsigned order, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Mountain Valley Pipeline proponents' emergency application to vacate two Fourth Circuit orders halting construction of the 303-mile natural gas pipeline. The high court vacated the appellate court's July 10, 2023, and July 11, 2023, orders staying...
Curtis, Fisch, and Robertson's article, Do ESG Mutual Funds Deliver on Their Promises, is a timely and insightful piece with several important conclusions.