Category: NEPA

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Aug. 7 issued a temporary restraining order to pause construction on the controversial detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” for two weeks pending argument on the underlying preliminary injunction action.

Plaintiffs – which include the environmental non-profit groups, Friends of the Everglades, Inc. and the Center for Biological Diversity – filed suit on June 27 in the Southern District of Florida against various officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Miami-Dade Florida …

While shifting political winds don’t literally blow through the trees, their force and impact can cause environmental policy to lurch back and forth.

For instance, in 2020, during the final quarter of the first Trump administration, the White House Counsel on Environmental Quality (CEQ) took steps to change the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by limiting federal oversight on newly begun projects, shortening the permissible length and depth of applications, and reducing the obligation to study the long-term impact of projects on the environment.  …

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the guidance of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) need only to consider the environmental effects of the “project at hand” and not those that are “separate in time and place.” 

The 8-0 decision handed down May 29 in Seven Cnty. Infrastructure Coal. v. Eagle County — of which Justice Gorsuch did not take part — further held that courts should “defer to an agency’s reasonable choices regarding the scope and …

The U.S. Supreme Court last week scheduled oral arguments for December 10 in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, a highly anticipated case that focuses on whether a federal agency should be required to consider environmental effects that it does not have direct authority to regulate and that do not occur near the project itself. 

In other words, the court will determine whether the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires a federal agency to study environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the …

As part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (the latest debt ceiling bill), Congress made the most significant revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) since its enactment in 1970. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has since made further changes to NEPA regulations, and those latest changes have been met with a legal challenge from 20 States’ Attorneys General.

The principal argument of the states is that since its enactment, courts have uniformly held that NEPA is a purely procedural statute, requiring agencies “to …