Hey, so are you wondering what's up with NEPA, our nation's keystone environmental law? Well, a LOT. Pull up a chair and I'll break it down for you. p.s. I just got here from the other place and am starting over from scratch! Retweet (or whatever the right word is) if you think this is helpful. - ThreadSky

janhasselman.bsky.social • 94 days ago

Hey, so are you wondering what's up with NEPA, our nation's keystone environmental law? Well, a LOT. Pull up a chair and I'll break it down for you.

p.s. I just got here from the other place and am starting over from scratch! Retweet (or whatever the right word is) if you think this is helpful.

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nolanhahn.bsky.social•93 days ago

Thoughts on what might happen with the Uinta Basin Railroad if you've been following that?

janhasselman.bsky.social•93 days ago

Oral argument is next week! Will it come up? Maybe. But that case focuses on the "reasonable foreseeability" of indirect effects, which is a requirement of the statute itself. So it does not seem like the regs are directly in play.

nolanhahn.bsky.social•93 days ago

STB said during that process that the construction of stations along the railroad couldn't be RFFAs. We had to pretend that it would just be tracks that no one would ever put anything on

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

First, a bombshell ruling from the D.C. Circuit last month found that the Council on Environmental Quality never had authority to issue rules in the first place. The rules have been in place since 1978 and have been cited in thousands of cases, including by the Supreme Court many times. Surprise!

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

What's funny is that no one challenged the rules or even raised the issue. The Court just kind of hauled off and raised it on its own.

Also, the Court did NOT vacate the rules, which are still in effect. And petitions for rehearing by the full D.C. Circuit have been filed. So this ain't over yet.

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

But it didn't take long for other courts to notice. In cases around the country where NEPA cases are pending, the D.C. Circuit's ruling creates a cloud of uncertainty. Most of those cases involve discussion of CEQ's rules. So what happens if the rules just disappear? No one knows!

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

One of those cases is in North Dakota, where a coalition of red states brought a legal challenge to the 2024 amendments to the CEQ rules. They never challenged CEQ's legal authority generally - they just liked an earlier version of the rules (enacted by Trump).

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

But with the legality of the rules directly on the table, the Court wants to know what it all means! So the parties are briefing how the D.C. Circuit decision implicates this case. That briefing will be concluded on Dec. 20, with a decision to follow soon thereafter. Stay tuned!

janhasselman.bsky.social•94 days ago

Meanwhile, as you may have heard, a change in government is going to happen next month! In 2020, the Trump CEQ ripped up the 1978 NEPA rules and issued its own. Multiple lawsuits were brought challenging them, but the Biden admin was successful in fixing the problem with a rewrite of its own.

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