|
9th Circuit rejects 2 appeals, finds NEPA requirements were met
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
On July 9 a panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected two lawsuits in which several environmental organizations challenged the validity of recent Bureau of Land Management lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. One of the cases challenged the lease sales held in 2016 and 2017, while the other case challenged the 2017 lease sale. Both lawsuits were dismissed last December by the federal District Court in Alaska. The plaintiffs subsequently appealed the cases to the 9th Circuit.
In both cases the environmental organizations argued that the BLM decisions to hold the sales had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not adequately evaluating the potential environmental impacts of conducting the sales.
Greenhouse gas emissions The lawsuit challenging the 2016 and 2017 lease sales argued that, when deciding whether to hold the sales, BLM had not adequately considered the potential greenhouse gas emissions that could result from the oil and gas development that the leasing could trigger. The plaintiffs also claimed that BLM had not adequately considered a range of possible lease sale configurations when evaluating the environmental impacts of the sales.
In rejecting this lawsuit the District Court said that the lawsuit, in effect, was targeting the adequacy of the NPR-A integrated activity plan that BLM had published in 2013. But, to challenge that plan, an appeal would have to have been filed with 60 days of the plan’s publication, the court said. The court also said that the environmental impact statement developed in 2012 for the integrated activity plan had satisfied the NEPA requirements for conducting the lease sales.
The 9th Circuit judges, in their July 9 ruling, concurred that the EIS for the integrated activity plan was, in effect, the EIS for the subsequent lease sales envisaged under the plan. The judges also dismissed the concept that climate change impacts from the individual lease sales might differ from the findings from the required analysis conducted for the EIS. The fact that the plaintiffs’ claims address information or circumstances knowable at the time when the EIS was developed means that the plaintiffs are now time barred from appealing the EIS findings, the judges wrote.
BLM’s only obligation for its evaluations of the environmental impacts of the lease sales was to determine whether any new information or circumstances relating to environmental impacts had arisen since the EIS had been completed, the judges said.
EIS for the 2017 sale The lawsuit relating to just the 2017 lease sale argued that BLM should have conducted a formal environmental assessment, and potentially an EIS, for the sale. In rejecting this case, the District Court had, as in the other case, said that the integrated activity plan EIS had, in effect, been the EIS for the lease sale. Moreover, the lease sale, in itself, would not trigger any physical activity on the land - any future exploration and development activities on leased land would require environmental review, the court commented.
Again, the panel of 9th Circuit judges concurred with the District Court, finding that the 2012 EIS had satisfied the NEPA requirements for conducting the 2017 lease sale.
Another appeal The 9th Circuit Court is also in the process of gathering testimony in another case challenging oil and gas activities in the NPR-A. In this case the Native Village of Nuiqsut and five national environmental groups are questioning the adequacy of BLM’s environmental review of ConocoPhillips Alaska’s 2018-19 North Slope winter exploration plan and other industrial activities such as road and pad construction. After the District Court in Alaska rejected the case in January, the plaintiffs appealed the case to the 9th Circuit.
- ALAN BAILEY
|
