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Maine: Energy

The Public Utilities Commission proposed to adopt a new rule on the procurement of renewable energy promoting the use of contaminated land. The rule would provide guidance for the procurement of renewable energy resources, including providing a preference for resources located on contaminated lands. A hearing will be held March 19, 2024. Comments are due March 29, 2024. See https://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/rules/notices/2024/022824.html.

Colorado: Natural Resources

The Department of Natural Resources proposed amendments to regulations governing oil and gas practice and procedure. The amendments would, among other things, add and revise several definitions, including “community liaison,” “cumulative impacts,” and “disproportionately impacted community,” and update current permitting requirements to further address cumulative impacts of oil and gas operations. A hearing will be held April 9, 2024.

Arkansas: Waste

The Department of Energy and Environment proposed amendments to regulations governing storage tanks. The amendments would, among other things, conform to new payment requirements from the Petroleum Storage Tank Trust Fund established in Act 422 and incorporate provisions for lapsed licenses and reinstatement and reciprocity and provisional certificates. A hearing will be held March 27, 2024. Comments are due April 10, 2024.

Arkansas: Governance

The Department of Agriculture adopted a new rule for prescribed burning. The rule establishes the criteria for a "qualified prescribed burner" and creates a review committee responsible for designing initial and ongoing training programs, as well as evaluating the qualifications of applicants from other jurisdictions. See http://170.94.37.152/REGS/209.00.23-001F-23877.pdf.

Will Risk Aversion at the NRC Avert the Energy Transition?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both have long-standing risk regulation regimes. To promote deployment of advanced nuclear reactors, Congress directed the NRC to reform its licensing regulations to increase the use of risk-informed, performance-based, and technology-neutral approaches. However, the NRC has doubled down on its traditional risk-management strategies, which require eliminating even the most remote and improbable risks, and which fail to account for the benefits of advanced reactors.

Avoiding Performative Climate Justice

Today's climate impacts and those on the horizon increasingly infuse mitigation and adaptation efforts with urgency, causing policymakers to contemplate or issue formal declarations of a climate emergency and to streamline review processes to aid rapid development of mitigation and adaptation infrastructure and technology. Yet, this urgency and need have the potential to create injustice and sideline or overwhelm efforts to reduce existing injustice.

The Tyranny of Baselines

Many environmental law paradigms focus on fixed points. Sometimes, the fixed points are in the past, and environmental laws call upon us to look at a baseline or previous state of nature and compare our actions against it. Other approaches call for us to consider an ideal state and develop strategies regarding how to reach it. In a 4° Celsius world, both strategies fail. Adhering to baselines is meaningless and striving for goals that are unachievable may lead to paralysis.

“Experimental Populations” Final Rule: FWS’ Response to Climate Change Threats

Climate change and invasive species are jeopardizing already endangered and threatened species, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to finalize its 2023 rule allowing experimental populations to be introduced into habitat outside their historical range, as long as the areas are capable of supporting the experimental population.