Source: http://www.acoel.org/?page=47
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 06:58:32+00:00

Document:
On January 21, 2010 thousands packed the auditorium at the University of Charleston in Charleston West Virginia and tuned in on television and radio for the debate between Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Asked about his primary concerns for the future of energy, Mr. Blankenship stated that they were the security of this country and improving the quality of life in this country and throughout the world. This answer became somewhat of a theme for Mr. Blankenship, as he stated his concern for the health and well-being of people, which is dependent on their quality of life, which is heavily dependant on affordable electricity, which is heavily dependent on coal.
When asked the same question, Mr. Kennedy offered several minutes of comments similar to other speeches he has given around the country concerning Appalachia and coal in which he highlighted his families’ ties to West Virginia along with his views against surface mining.
The audience, having a near equal number of supporters from both sides, was relatively subdued thanks to early pleas from University of Charleston President and event moderator Dr. Welch to hold-off applause until the end. At times, however, both debaters received loud applause for their answers to questions.
Throughout the debate, Mr. Kennedy stated the many health and environmental issues he believed to be caused by coal, while Mr. Blankenship reminded Mr. Kennedy that many of his biggest issues with coal, such as the burning of coal and its contribution to Mercury in water, are primarily caused by other countries with much a higher usage of coal, such as China and India.
Mr. Kennedy also focused a great deal on alternative energy, such as wind and solar energy, as well as West Virginia’s need to switch its focus on these alternative energy sources. Mr. Blankenship responded that if it was profitable to build solar panel fields or wind farms, without government subsidies, it would be happening at a greater rate than is occurring. Blankenship stated that his company is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the coal industry because that is where the investment will pay off in a free enterprise market.
While the security at the event mirrored that of international flight travel, the debate itself was a success, going off without much disturbance other than the occasional burst of applause.
SCOTT BROWN'S ELECTION - ONE MORE SET-BACK FOR CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION?
When Scott Brown was elected to fill Senator Kennedy’s senate seat, news reports highlighted the impact on health care legislation and the loss of the filibuster-proof sixty vote Democratic majority in the Senate. In environmental circles, however, many commentators pointed out the potential impact on climate change legislation.
Prior to his election, most believed that once Congress passed the health care bill, it would turn its full attention to climate change legislation and pass some form of legislation to limit green house gas (“GHG”) emissions. The loss of this key Democratic Senate seat makes the prospect of GHG legislation in the near future seem less likely, although some commentators take the contrarian view. They argue that if health care reform moves to the back burner, the chances of passing a climate bill would increase because Democrats need a major legislative victory to bolster the 2010 election efforts.
Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007) finding the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act (“CAA”), some form of mandatory GHG controls, either through legislation, regulation, or a combination of both, has seemed inevitable. In response to the Massachusetts decision, EPA and Congress have been moving on parallel tracks to regulate GHG emissions.
EPA has issued a number of proposed and final rules, including a final mandatory GHG reporting rule, 74 Fed. Reg. 56260 (Oct. 30, 2009), an Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Finding that motor vehicle GHG emissions contribute to GHG pollution and threaten public health and welfare, 74 Fed. Reg. 66496 (De. 15, 2009), and a proposed “Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title 5 Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule,” 74 Fed. Reg. 55292 (Oct. 27, 2009), among others. EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also announced a joint proposal to establish light duty vehicle GHG and mileage standards for model years 2012 through 2016.
In response to concerns expressed by both industry and environmental interests that the CAA is not the best vehicle for regulating GHGs, factions in the House and the Senate have proposed sweeping legislation to reduce GHG emissions, the Waxman-Markey Climate Change bill, H.R. 2454, “The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” in the House of Representatives, and the Boxer-Kerry bill, the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” in the Senate. Both include GHG emissions reductions targets and use a cap and trade scheme to achieve those goals. In addition, they include a variety of other measures to encourage investment in alternative energy sources and energy efficiency.
In recent months, efforts to move forward with this legislation seems to have been eclipsed by efforts to pass comprehensive health care legislation, but the conventional wisdom was that some form of legislation would be passed once health care was put to rest. Now that the Democrats have lost a filibuster-proof super majority, prospects for climate change legislation seem to be dimming.
On the EPA regulatory front, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has been on the attack, trying to prevent EPA from promulgating GHG regulations that limit emissions from major sources. Most recently, she filed a “disapproval resolution” on January 22, 2010, seeking to retroactively veto EPA’s endangerment and cause or contribute findings that GHGs endanger public health and the environment, thereby .blocking EPA’s GHG regulations.
A disapproval resolution is a procedural mechanism that prohibits executive branch agency rules from taking effect. It only requires 51 votes and is not subject to filibuster rules. Senator Murkowski claims to have the backing of 39 other senators, including three Democrats, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb., and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). She introduced this resolution on the heels of Scott Brown’s election, and she does not expect this resolution to reach the floor for a vote before Scott Brown is sworn into office.
Even if she is able to garner 51 votes in the Senate, the House must pass a similar resolution, and it must be signed by the President to go into effect. Even if it does not succeed, it signals a widespread lack of support, even among Democrats, for legislation controlling GHG emissions this year. Scott Brown’s election should make it more difficult to enact climate change legislation, especially with an election season just around the corner because his election is being interpreted by many to signal the electorate’s disapproval of the Obama agenda.
In the meantime, if there is no climate change legislation passed, EPA likely will continue to move down the regulatory path of limiting GHG emissions using its authority under the CAA.
WATER MORE VALUABLE THAN OIL NOW? FOR SURE SOMEDAY!
According to Bloomberg News, the worldwide scarcity of usable water worldwide already has made water more valuable than oil. The Bloomberg World Water Index, which tracks 11 utilities, has returned more to investors every year since 2003 than oil and gas stocks or the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
When you want to spot emerging trends, follow the money. Today, many of the world’s leading companies and investors are making big bets on water. Why -- there simply is not enough freshwater to go around, and the situation is expected to get worse before it gets better.
The most essential commodity in the world today is not oil, not natural gas, not even some type of renewable energy. It’s water -- clean, safe, fresh water.
In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly designated March 22 as World Water Day. Every year on that date, people worldwide participate in events and programs to raise public awareness about what many believe to be the world’s most serious health issue -- unsafe and inadequate water supplies -- and to promote the conservation and development of global water resources.
More than a billion people -- almost one-fifth of the world’s population -- lack access to safe drinking water, and 40 percent lack access to basic sanitation, according to the 2nd UN World Water Development Report.
The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than two billion people in 48 countries will lack sufficient water. Approximately 97 percent to 98 percent of the water on planet Earth is saltwater (the estimates vary slightly depending on the source). Much of the remaining freshwater is frozen in glaciers or the polar ice caps. Lakes, rivers and groundwater account for about 1 percent of the world’s potentially usable freshwater.
According to the United Nations, which has declared 2005-2015 the “Water for Life” decade, 95 percent of the world’s cities still dump raw sewage into their water supplies. Thus it should come as no surprise to know that 80 percent of all the health maladies in developing countries can be traced back to unsanitary water. The global water crisis is the leading cause of death and disease in the world, taking the lives of more than 14,000 people each day, 11,000 of them children under age 5.
If global warming continues to melt glaciers in the polar regions, as expected, the supply of freshwater may actually decrease. First, freshwater from the melting glaciers will mingle with saltwater in the oceans and become too salty to drink. Second, the increased ocean volume will cause sea levels to rise, contaminating freshwater sources along coastal regions with seawater.
Sandra Postel, author of the 1998 book, Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, predicts big water availability problems as populations of so-called “water-stressed” countries jump perhaps six fold over the next 30 years. “It raises tons of issues about water and agriculture, growing enough food, providing for all the material needs that people demand as incomes increase, and providing drinking water,” says Postel.
Developed countries are not immune to freshwater problems either. Researchers found a six-fold increase in water use for only a two-fold increase in population size in the United States since 1900. Such a trend reflects the connection between higher living standards and increased water usage, and underscores the need for more sustainable management and use of water supplies even in more developed societies. Further evidence of the coming issue with water is that while China is home to 20 percent of the world’s people, only 7 percent of the planet’s freshwater supply is located there.
With world population expected to pass nine billion by mid-century, solutions to water scarcity problems are not going to come easy. Some have suggested that technology -- such as large-scale saltwater desalination plants -- could generate more freshwater for the world to use. But environmentalists argue that depleting ocean water is no answer and will only create other serious problems.
The cost of water is usually set by government agencies and local regulators. Water is not traded on commodity exchanges, but many utilities stocks are publicly traded. Meanwhile, investments in companies that provide desalinization, and other processes and technologies that may increase the world’s supply of freshwater, are growing rapidly. General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said the scarcity of clean water around the world will more than double GE’s revenue from water purification and treatment by 2010 -- to a total of $5 billion. GE’s strategy is for its water division to invest in desalinization and purification in countries that have a shortage of freshwater. Research and development into improving desalination technologies is ongoing, especially in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Japan. And already an estimated 11,000 desalination plants exist in some 120 countries around the world.
Every environmental litigator understands the duty to preserve documents. Before a complaint is filed, a plaintiff must preserve documents relevant to the claims about to be advanced. If a defendant reasonably anticipates litigation, the defendant must undertake reasonable efforts to preserve documents that are relevant to the impending lawsuit. Once a complaint is served, a defendant must preserve documents relevant to the claims alleged.
In the electronic world, especially on a prelitigation basis, it is doubly important to identify custodians with relevant documents (“key players”) since with a keystroke, they have the ability to delete responsive electronically stored information. Aluminum Corp. v. Alcoa, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66642 (M.D. La. July 19, 2006) illustrates the risk. Alcoa sent a cost-recovery demand to Consolidated Aluminum in 2002 and promptly put a litigation hold on the electronic documents of four Alcoa employees involved with a remedial investigation and cleanup. In 2003, Consolidated filed a declaratory judgment action seeking to be absolved of liability. In 2005, Consolidated propounded discovery that prompted Alcoa to expand its key player list by eleven more names. It was not until this expansion that Alcoa suspended its janitorial email deletion policy and backup tape maintenance policy which at Alcoa meant that email older than about seven months was no longer available unless it had been archived by the individual user. The magistrate judge imposed a monetary sanction on Alcoa—in effect determining that Alcoa should have identified these additional individuals as key players in 2002. 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66642, *36.
If a duty to preserve is violated, and documents are lost as a result, sanctions may result. What sanction will depend upon the level of culpability of the “spoliating” party—negligence, gross negligence, or bad faith--and the amount of prejudice to the “innocent” party by the loss of information relevant to the innocent party’s claim or defense. But what is the difference between “negligence” and “gross negligence”? Who has the burden of proof in establishing the culpability of the conduct or the existence of prejudice? May a court presume prejudice depending upon the level of culpability? If so, is such a presumption rebuttable?
In contrast, the failure to obtain records from all employees, as opposed to key players, or to take all appropriate measures to preserve electronically stored information in most cases “likely” will fall into the “negligence” category, unless the facts, on a case-by-case basis, demonstrate otherwise, she held.
The slip opinion is 85 pages in length and rather than summarizing it further here, I urge readers to review it. In the end, Judge Scheindlin decided that relevant information was lost and the innocent party (here a defendant) was prejudiced. She decided to give an adverse inference instruction that itself represents two illuminating single-spaced pages of the opinion, along with monetary sanctions (including attorneys’ fees for deposing certain declarants and bringing the sanctions motion).
Pension Committee begins with the byline, “Zubulake Revisited: Six Years Later.” This time, there will be no debate over how to pronounce Pension Committee. And, in the years to come, Pension Committee is sure to be cited just as often as Zubulake has been.
In the past several decades, due in large measure to the persistence of innovative independent oil and gas operators, advancements in drilling and completion technology and the increased demand for natural gas during the expanding economic times that existed prior to year-end 2008, a paradigm shift occurred in the domestic natural gas market that will have significant impact in areas of the U.S. that, heretofore, were not significant producers of the commodity. Prior to this development, supply tightness and price volatility were characteristic features of the natural gas market. Now, due to these " Mega" shale and tight sands gas plays, there will be increased environmental scrutiny of this sector's activities, in addition to the dampening of price swings.
The U.S. gas supply currently is predicted to be at least 150 years at use levels similar to those existing in 2008. Only a few short years ago, forecasters were predicting the need for massive imports of liquefied natural gas to meet predicted near term demand. This change in conditions has very significant implications politically and certainly presents interesting opportunities on a variety of fronts for environmental attorneys.
One particularly interesting aspect of these newly found natural gas reserves is the fact that a significant portion of this exploration, production, processing and transmission activity will be occurring in areas of the U.S. that have had limited exposure to such activity. The last ten (10) years of rapid expansion of natural gas activity in the Barnett Shale area of Texas, i.e., North Central Texas and the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, is a forerunner for what is likely to occur as the resource development expands to other known shale deposits.
Numerous other environmental related contentions relative to the development of the Barnett Shale reserve have generally been directed at the well completion phase where large volumes of fresh water with additives are utilized in hydraulic fracing (pressurized mixture for breaking apart the formation rock to allow for the natural gas to flow), the disposal of wastewater and the specifics of the proprietary formulas for the additives. In addition, there are a variety of claims relative to general safety, increased truck traffic and disturbances of property for the placing of associated gathering and transmission lines.
This paradigm shift in the natural gas reserve potential should afford many in our profession an excellent opportunity to provide sound advice and counsel utilizing the experiences we have gained in addressing similar issues in the past.
The regulated community is experimenting with solutions to water quality regulatory problems that are market based and implemented on a watershed scale. Such efforts are being met with guarded interest by agencies, environmental organizations and the public, but offer the best hope for true ecological restoration. Oregon has recently passed legislation to foster ecosystem services markets to facilitate this approach.
The Clean Water Act addresses water quality degradation through establishment of water quality standards and imposition of technology based effluent limitations in point source discharge permits. The receiving waters are tested periodically to see if standards are being attained, and if not, then Total Maximum Daily Loads are set and waste load allocations given to point sources so that permits can be adjusted. Non-point sources are given load allocations in the TMDL, but since there is no direct regulatory enforcement mechanism, and since funding sources are limited, compliance is not assured.
This model has worked out pretty well for dealing with municipal and industrial waste water discharges, and toxics in receiving waters have been much reduced. However, there has been little effect on water quality degradation related to non-point sources. In Oregon, over 1,200 streams are listed as water quality limited, and the vast majority are on the list for non-point source related problems, such as warmer ambient water temperatures and nutrient loading. What to do?
The conventional response is to ratchet up permit requirements for point sources, or impose local mitigation requirements on those caught in the Clean Water Act § 401 water certification web. As it is said, if all you have is a hammer, all your problems are nails. There are, however, other tools in the box. Here are a couple of examples of ecomarket approaches.
Clean Water Services is the second largest sewerage agency in Oregon. It has four treatment outfalls discharging to the flat, slow moving Tualatin River. The discharge raises receiving water temperatures, and when it came time to renew its four permits, the agency was facing stricter requirements to control thermal loading. Rather than installing mechanical chillers at the outfalls, the CWS proposed a large-scale riparian revegetation program. It was projected that the massive tree planting effort would take about ten years to match the cooling effect of the chillers, but would double the cooling as the trees matured. And with such an effort come ancillary habitat and other ecological benefits throughout the watershed that no chiller could provide. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality approved the program and it is being implemented.
Idaho Power Company has proposed a similar approach to resolve water temperature problems associated with its Hells Canyon Complex on the Snake River. The HCC is comprised of three dams and reservoirs that together generate over 1,100 MW. The HCC is undergoing relicensing, which triggers the CWA 401 water quality certification process before both the Oregon and Idaho Departments of Environmental Quality, as the Snake River is a border stream. A temperature control structure installed in the HCC’s largest reservoir would probably solve the regulatory problem, but would offer few ecological benefits. Instead, the company is proposing an ambitious upstream watershed improvement program comprised of riparian planting, fencing, wetlands enhancement, irrigation efficiency upgrades and flow augmentation. The Snake River watershed is vast and complex, with heavy human influence throughout, so a program on this scale will be tough to implement. However, the potential upside piques the imagination.
Official policy favors such watershed approaches. EPA has adopted a water quality trading policy that encourages transactions between point and non-point sources with a focus on reducing nutrient loads and thus restoring depleted dissolved oxygen. EPA also recognizes the potential for applying the policy to temperature problems. Last year the Oregon legislature enacted Senate Bill 513 , which establishes state policy supporting development of ecosystem services markets to facilitate watershed scale solutions to water quality restoration.
I have been appointed to the SB 513 working group tasked with developing the policy and making further recommedations to the legislature. One of the greatest challenges is the lack of reliable metrics. Because there are myriad other upstream influences on water temperature, it is exceedingly difficult to measure the effect of an upstream tree planting program on downstream temperatures. Further, the benefits from watershed programs are long term in nature.
Thus, there is risk both to the permittee and the regulatory agency that someone will sue to require immediate and measureable results. But if the goal of the overall regulatory program is truly ecological protection and restoration, then we must go beyond compliance for the sake of compliance and focus on outcomes. The huge potential for sustainable, widespread benefits resulting from watershed approaches makes this an effort well worth making.
Accompanied by a considerable public relations effort, the United States Environmental Protection Agency proposed new national ambient air quality standards for ozone on January 7, 2010. The agency wants to reduce the primary 8-hour ozone standard from its current value of 0.075 parts per million, promulgated by the last administration in March 2008, to a level in the range from 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million. Using its reconsideration of the 2008 standard as a platform, EPA emphasized that more careful attention should be paid to the recommendations of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. That, it says, is just good science.
The country will face considerable difficulty and expense meeting the proposed primary standard nationwide, especially at its lower range. Based on monitoring data from 2006 to 2008, EPA predicts that a proposed primary standard set at 0.060 parts per million would be violated in all but 24 of the counties monitored counties nationwide for the pollutant.
In the part of the country where I live ― my office is in Colorado ― a new standard is going to be extremely difficult to meet, especially at the lower range of the proposal. In our area of the West, monitoring shows that we are, for the most part, quite close to either side of the current 2008 standard. The populous Northern Front Range region of the state reports ozone values of 0.071 parts per million to 0.086 parts per million. Colorado’s state health department, like many others in the West, is struggling mightily to form compliance strategies that will substantially improve ozone air quality in areas that today do not meet the existing standard.
Ozone pollution generally is formed in the atmosphere near the ground in very complex reactions that exploit energy from sunlight to transform a mix of volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and methane. Control of ozone focuses on industrial facilities, the generation of electricity, motor vehicle exhaust gases, gasoline vapors, and chemical solvents. These are the major sources of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides generated from human activities.
Ozone is particularly difficult to control because of pollutant transport. Precursor pollutants and ozone often arrive near a monitor in a complicated mix of local emissions and emissions carried by the wind from hundreds of miles away. A knowledgeable local air quality expert, quoted in an editorial printed on January 11, 2010, told The Denver Post that the lower range of EPA’s proposed standard is “close to background” levels for the Front Range of Colorado.
As in any primary national ambient air quality standard proceeding ― where the goal under the Clean Air Act is to protect the public’s health with a margin of safety ― fundamental, difficult and interesting questions must be addressed and answered. Who is EPA trying to protect through its proposed standard? It is focusing upon people with lung disease, especially children with asthma, elderly people, and people who are active outdoors, but it emphasizes protection of children. In her speech when the proposed standard was released, Lisa Jackson, the Administrator of EPA, told her audience of her 13-year old son’s difficulty with asthma on days with high ozone levels. What is EPA protecting these people from? It is protecting against reduced lung function and irritation in their airways, aggravation of asthma and susceptibility to respiratory infection, and aggravation of chronic lung diseases. What does science have to say about the level of air pollution that supplies that protection? Usually even more important, what does the science not have to say ― what are the unknowns and assumptions we must make, given the limits to our knowledge? And ― dare I write it? ― is control possible at the levels suggested by the science available to us? At what cost and with what set of benefits?
In any event, I was particularly struck by a comment reported in our local newspaper when the standard was announced. My reaction may be an over-reaction, but what I read seemed eerily familiar to me and a bit worrisome. The Denver Post reprinted remarks by the Director of EPA’s Air Programs in Region 8. She reportedly said that residents can begin to make a difference to lower ozone levels by riding the bus and bicycling more instead of driving, weed-whacking and lawn mowing after sunset, and maybe ditching leaf-blowers and switching to push mowers. EPA Increases Burden on Denver to Reduce Smog,The Denver Post, January 8, 2010, p. B-1.
I was a young engineer working for EPA during its foray into federal indirect source controls in the late 1970’s. The remarks I read in the newspaper brought back memories of those days. I hope the group of people currently in charge at EPA remember, too.
An indirect source, as defined in Section 110 (a)(5)(C) of the Clean Air Act, is “a facility, building, structure, installation, real property, road, or highway which attracts, or may attract, mobile sources of pollution.” More plainly, in the early 1970s federal indirect source controls were designed to force people not to drive their cars to particular areas, if air quality might be imperiled, by forbidding or regulating the businesses that drew those people. In early 1973, responding to a court order, EPA proposed approaches like limiting the number of parking spots at airports, malls, sports venues and amusement parks, forcing parking garages to be smaller, and limiting or rejecting the development of real estate projects that would draw people in their cars. 38 Fed. Reg. 9599 (April 18, 1973). Later that year, the EPA instructed the states to consider these strategies in preconstruction indirect source review. 38 Fed. Reg. 15834 (June 18, 1973) (promulgation of state implementation plan requirements for “mobile source activity associated with . . . buildings, facilities, and installations.”).
Even a very young engineer could tell that EPA’s approach was a disaster. Ordinary people (as distinct from the business people operating electric generating stations, paint booths, or oil and gas pipelines) were extremely unhappy when the federal government wanted to make their ordinary activities ― driving their cars to a shopping center or to watch a sporting event ― difficult or forbidden. And, of course, the states resented federal intrusion into traditional areas of state and local land use controls. It is also quite easy today to imagine how unhappy the powerful real estate developers were, too.
The reaction was predictable (at least in hindsight) and rapid. Congress forbade EPA from pursuing indirect source regulation in the interest of meeting air quality standards. In a 1974 supplemental appropriations act, Pub. L. No. 93-245, 87 Stat. 1071 (1974), Congress denied EPA budget funds and administrative authority “to administer any program to tax, limit, or otherwise regulate parking facilities.” Permanent changes to the Clean Air Act came with the 1977 Amendments to the Clean Air Act, when restrictive language was added that is still codified in Section 110(a)(5) of the Clean Air Act. You can read more in a federal Court of Appeals opinion about the controversy and its aftermath, Manchester Environmental Coalition v. EPA, 612 F.2d 56 (2nd Cir. 1979) (successful challenge to EPA’s approval of Connecticut’s revocation of its implementation plan’s indirect source review program). You can get the flavor of this controversy by reading the discussion in the House Report that accompanied H.R. 6161, the House bill underlying the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. H.R. Rep. No. 294, 95th Cong., 1st Sess., 220-221 (May 12, 1977).
Today some states and political subdivisions choose to use indirect controls on air pollution in their programs. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District in California and the State of Wisconsin have programs that are easily found on the Internet, for example.
But EPA is still forbidden to impose indirect source controls upon the states. And the remarks of the regional air quality official about the ozone proposal strike me as suggesting federal regulation that will be perceived in a quite similar and unhappy way by ordinary citizens. Is EPA going to force people to use push lawnmowers? To throw away their leaf blowers and weed whackers?
Will we follow this path again? I hope not. Controlling the precursors to the formation of ground level ozone at the levels now proposed by EPA is going to be terribly difficult and expensive, at best. But those controls must first have the support of citizens and their elected representatives if they are to have any chance to succeed. Whatever ambient air quality levels are eventually chosen by EPA in the ozone rulemaking, the control strategies eventually imposed by our federal government should not make people so angry that they forget why they are being protected.
Shortly before the holidays, EPA Administrator Jackson issued an Order in response to a challenge to a combined Title V / PSD permit issued by the Kentucky Division for Air Quality to an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, or IGCC, plant. The Order upheld the challenge, in part, on the ground that neither the permittee nor KDAQ had adequately justified why the BACT analysis for the facility did not include consideration of full-time use of natural gas notwithstanding that the plant is an IGCC facility.
The Order may not be shocking in today’s environment – all meanings of that word intended – but the lengths to which the Order goes to avoid its own logical consequences shows just what a departure this decision is from established practice concerning BACT. BACT analyses have traditionally involved the proverbial “top-down” look at technologies that can be used to control emissions from a proposed facility. In other words, EPA takes the proposal as a given, and then asks what the best available control technology is for that facility.
Historically, EPA has not considered the BACT requirement as a means to redefine the design of the source when considering available control alternatives. For example, applicants proposing to construct a coal-fired electric generator, have not been required by EPA as part of a BACT analysis to consider building a natural gas-fired electric turbine although the turbine may be inherently less polluting per unit product (in this case electricity).
should in no way be interpreted as EPA expressing a policy preference for construction of natural-gas fired facilities over IGCC facilities.
should not be interpreted to establish or imply an EPA position that PSD permitting authorities should conclude … that BACT for a proposed electricity generating unit is … natural gas.
EPA does not intend to discourage applicants that propose to construct an IGCC facility from seeking to hedge the risk of investing in … IGCC technology by proposing … utilizing natural gas for some period….
Methinks EPA doth protest too much. If I may say so, this is a freakin’ IGCC facility. Isn’t it obvious that one doesn’t plan or build an IGCC facility if one plans to burn natural gas? Don’t you think that EPA could have taken administrative notice of what IGCC technology is?
All of EPA’s protestations about the Order’s limits may be designed to mollify IGCC supporters, but what does its rationale mean for all of the existing facilities – coal and oil – that are already capable of firing on natural gas? Next time they are subject to NSR/PSD review, must they evaluate the possibility of switching completely to natural gas? As I’ve said here before, yikes!
The 9th Circuit affirmed the dismissal, for lack of jurisdiction, over a “pattern and practice” claim by a company that complied with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unilateral administrative order (UAO) to conduct a remedial investigation. City of Rialto v. W. Coast Loading Corp., 581 F.3d 865 (9th Cir. 2009). While acknowledging that CERCLA's judicial review provisions contain "some pitfalls and difficult decisions for a PRP that faces a UAO," the court stated that the pattern and practice claim was not an “automatic shortcut” to federal court jurisdiction.
The case arose as a result of a unilateral administrative order (UAO) issued by EPA in July 2003 directing Goodrich to conduct a remedial investigation at a 160-acre site in Rialto, California. Goodrich elected to comply with the order. However, in late 2006 Goodrich filed a complaint against EPA alleging, inter alia, that the CERCLA review provisions on their face constitute a coercive regime violating due process. The district court held that it lacked jurisdiction over Goodrich’s “as-applied” challenge to the UAO because such pre-enforcement judicial review is foreclosed by §9613(h) of CERCLA. Goodrich then filed an amended “pattern and practice” claim alleging that EPA issues orders where no emergency exists, obstructs judicial review by delaying its discretionary certificates of completion, and controls and manipulates the record of decision. The district court granted EPA’s motion to dismiss, and Goodrich appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court of appeals concluded that Goodrich’s allegation that EPA routinely issues orders beyond its statutory authority was substantive because it necessarily depended on the facts of the particular UAO, and that meaningful judicial review of Goodrich’s substantive challenge is available under §9613(h). A claim that a UAO is unlawful can be addressed, the court stated, either by not complying with the UAO and defending an enforcement action, or by complying with a UAO and seeking reimbursement from the government. With respect to Goodrich’s claim that EPA routinely delays certifications of completion in order to thwart judicial review, the Ninth Circuit held that Goodrich’s claim is not ripe because the work required by the UAO has not been completed. Once Goodrich completes the work, it may bring a claim for reimbursement under §9606(b)(2). Finally, with respect to Goodrich’s allegation that EPA controls and manipulates the administrative record supporting the selected cleanup plan, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Goodrich allegations were not a “pattern and practice” claim , but rather were a challenge to the judicial review provisions of the statute itself, which were rejected by the District Court and not appealed by Goodrich.
The Ninth Circuit noted that in General Electric v. Whitman, 360 F.3d 188, 191 (D.C. Cir. 2004), the D.C. Circuit remanded GE’s suit to the district court to address the merits of GE’s facial due process claim, and on remand the district court ruled on merits and rejected GE’s pattern and practice claim. General Electric v. Jackson, 595 F.Supp.2d 8 (D.D.C. 2009). This ruling on the merits contrasts with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the district court lacked jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit, however, commented that its decision was “consistent” with the District Court’s decision in GE, noting that the District Court there held that it had jurisdiction not because of any independent analysis but because of its interpretation of the D.C. Circuit’s decision remanding the case for further proceedings.
Companies receiving a UAO and facing the statutory pitfalls and difficult decisions will likely not find much solace in the Ninth Circuit’s opinion. The district court’s opinion in the GE case is being appealed.
RESOLUTION OF TRI STATE WATER WAR ON THE HORIZON?
For more than two decades, Alabama, Florida and Georgia have clashed over water use from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin to support growing demands for water in each state. While it may be a an over generalization, the controversy largely pits Atlanta’s need for a large enough water supply to support its tremendous population growth against water needs in Alabama and Florida for consumption, hydroelectricity, irrigation, recreation, fisheries, and endangered species protection. The states reached a Memorandum of Agreement in 1992 which set a deadline for allocating water from the two watersheds to each state; however, the states were unable to reach an allocation agreement within the deadline and previously filed litigation resumed. While negotiations since have proved futile, a recent federal court decision along with the fact that the governors from each state are all leaving office in January 2011 may lead to a permanent solution to the tri-state water wars in the near future.
Specifically, on July 17, 2009, United States District Court Judge Paul Magnuson of the Middle District of Florida ruled that Georgia was not properly authorized to withdraw substantial amounts of water from Lake Lanier (a part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin) to provide drinking water to Atlanta. The Court held that because Lake Lanier is a federal reservoir built for purposes of flood control, hydropower generation, and navigation support, only Congress can approve the operational changes required for increased withdrawals of drinking water. Thus, the Court froze water withdrawals at current levels for the next three years to give time for Congressional approval. Without Congressional approval, withdrawals will revert to very low, baseline withdrawal levels used in the mid-1970s. Click here for a copy of the Court’s opinion.
As a result of the new court-ordered deadline, negotiations between the three states have resumed with a new fervor. On December 15, 2009, the Governors of Alabama, Florida and Georgia met in Montgomery, Alabama to discuss plans for reaching an agreement. While the Governors did not offer specifics on their negotiations, they did indicate that they now hope to reach an agreement on an allocation plan that could be presented to their respective state legislatures for approval this year. If an allocation plan does make it through each state’s legislature, it would of course have to go before Congress for final approval as well. To meet such an ambitious goal, the Governors would have to reach an accord as early as spring of this year.
Revisiting Rules: How Far Back Is Too Far Back?
Recently, while searching my bookshelves for a missing volume, I came upon a three-ringed binder of documents related to EPA’s 1980 PSD rules. Of particular interest to me were (1) my October 30, 1980 letter to then-EPA Administrator Douglas Costle asking that he clarify parts of those 1980 PSD rules, and (2) Administrator Costle’s letter responding to my inquiry. In his response, Administrator Costle assured me that the Agency would positively address my concerns in technical and conforming amendments that EPA was then preparing.
Any possible euphoria that I might have felt at the positive tone of Administrator Costle’s response was more than offset by the date of his letter: January 19, 1981, the day before Administrator Costle would be leaving EPA in advance of the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. Even early in my legal career almost thirty years ago, I knew I could not put much faith in the well-intentioned assurances of an outgoing EPA Administrator. The incoming Administrator would look at all pending issues with fresh eyes and might – or might not – decide to continue down the path laid out by Administrator Costle.
In fact, the incoming Reagan Administration decided to re-examine many of the actions taken by the Carter Administration in its waning days. Just as – 12 years later – the incoming Clinton Administration re-examined actions taken by the Bush (41) Administration as it left office; and 8 years after that, the new Bush (43) Administration re-thought actions of the departing Clinton Administration; and now -- 8 years later -- the Obama Administration is revisiting actions of the Bush Administration.
I do not here bemoan the fact that new administrations want to revisit the end-of-term decisions made by their predecessors. I ask, though, how far back in time should new administrations reach in their “revisitings”? We have come to expect incoming regulators to review rules that are still in proposed form and to pull back from publication rules that were only recently signed but have not yet been published in the Federal Register. We have also come to expect incoming administrations to look at rules that were published by a previous administration and are the subject of ongoing litigation so that new regulators can determine if they wish to continue to defend their predecessors’ rules or, instead, to re-examine those rules.
What happens, though, when a new administration reaches back to reexamine rules that have been on the books for many months or even years and that are in the midst of being implemented by the states and the regulated community? And what happens if the new administration wants to keep in place portions of a rule but wishes to scrap the remainder of the rule? This is happening now as EPA reconsiders the ozone ambient standard rule that was adopted by the Bush EPA early in 2008 and that is now the subject of litigation in the D.C. Circuit. No one would have been surprised if the new administration had asked the D.C. Circuit to remand the 2008 ozone standard rule so that EPA engage in a sped-up rulemaking to develop new/replacement ozone standards while continuing to implement the 2008 rule. Instead of doing that, though, EPA is essentially asking the D.C. Circuit to divide its ozone rule into pieces, thus allowing EPA to implement parts of the ozone rule while essentially trying to stay implementation of other parts of the regulation.
A new administration’s going back farther in time to “undo” programs currently being implemented -- and trying to stay portions of those programs while continuing to press for implementation of other parts of the programs -- is disruptive for both regulators and the regulated community. I hope that the D.C. Circuit recognizes this in the ozone ambient standard litigation and decides to impose a rational framework for this – and any new -- administration to follow as it goes down the well-trod path of trying to change a rule of its predecessors.
With those words, on December 16, 2009 Judge William C. Griesbach, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin dismissed CERCLA §107 contribution claims brought by Plaintiffs Appleton Papers, Inc. (API) and NCR Corp. against all Defendants. NCR and API sought contribution from 23 other paper mills, cities, utilities, and sewerage districts, and industrial dischargers to allocate the multi-million dollar costs of remediating the polychlorinated byphenyl (PCB) contamination in the Lower Fox River in northeastern Wisconsin. Defendants’ Summary Judgment motions asserted that Plaintiffs were not entitled to contribution because the Defendants are “essentially innocent parties who had no knowledge that recycling NCR paper or processing wastewater could lead to environmental damage.” Slip op. at 4. The Judge agreed.
Beginning in 1954, NCR developed a carbonless copy paper that relied on an emulsion based on Aroclor 1242, a PCB solvent manufactured by Monsanto Corporation. NCR created the emulsion and developed and sold the carbonless paper product. API’s predecessor manufactured the paper and coated it with the NCR emulsion. API’s wastewater was discharged to the Fox River, taking the PCBs with it. API also sold its waste paper to other mills to be recycled into paper products, resulting in PCB-containing wastewater discharges from those facilities. The result: significant PCB-contamination in the sediments of the Lower Fox River from the mouth at Green Bay to Lake Winnebago and what has been called the largest contaminated sediment cleanup in the world..
The decision turns on what the Plaintiffs knew about the potential harm of the PCBs in their carbonless copy paper and when they knew it. It includes an instructive recital of internal communications within and among NCR and API, Monsanto, and Wiggins Teape, NCR’s exclusive European-licensee, leading to the Court’s conclusion that “I am satisfied that by the late 1960’s Plaintiffs had access to the vanguard of data suggesting an appreciable risk of serious and long-lasting environmental damage resulting from the production and recycling of NCR paper.” (emphasis in original) Slip op. at 26.
“In the face of increasing red flags, Plaintiffs’ approach in the late 1960s was to worry about publicity and wait for the ‘second shoe’ to drop. At its essence, Plaintiffs’ approach was a risk management strategy to accept the risk of potential environmental harm in exchange for the financial benefits of continued (and increasing) sales of carbonless paper containing Aroclor 1242.” Slip op. at 26.
Tenant Liability Under CERCLA: Is It time To Move Beyond Enforcement Discretion Guidance?
Arguably the most significant moderation of CERCLA’s harsh “owner” liability scheme occurred in 2002 through the enactment of the “Brownfields Amendments.” Included in those amendments was the creation of new liability protection for “Bona Fide Prospective Purchasers” (“BFPP”) who acquire ownership of a facility after January 11, 2002.
A relatively straightforward roadmap for prospective purchasers to achieve BFPP status is set out in the Brownfields Amendments and the subsequently-promulgated All Appropriate Inquiry rule. The extent to which tenants might obtain protection from possible “owner” liability has, however, always been far less certain.
The potential applicability of this liability defense to tenants is currently limited to a short parenthetical in CERCLA §101(40). Specifically, a “tenant of a person” that achieves BFPP status shares the liability protections of the property purchaser. Although this “derivative” BFPP status established by the Brownfields Amendments helped clarify the reach of the liability defense with respect to tenants, a number of questions remained unanswered. For example, what happens if the property owner loses its BFPP status through non-compliance with the statutory requirements? Also, does the language of the amendment as it relates to tenants preclude a tenant from independently achieving BFPP status?
Tenants with “derivative” BFPP status will lose that status if the property owner ceases to be a BFPP for non-compliance with one or more of the statutory requirements. Nevertheless, EPA may exercise its enforcement discretion and not pursue the tenant under an owner liability theory if the tenant satisfies certain conditions, including not having disposed of hazardous substances on the property and fully cooperating with EPA in its response actions.
Tenants whose lease documents establish sufficient “indicia of ownership” and who satisfy all requirements of CERCLA §101(40)(A)-(H) and 107(r) may be deemed to have independently achieved BFPP status and thus possibly avoid an enforcement action under CERCLA’s owner liability provisions. Indicia of ownership include the term of the lease, the range of permitted property uses by the tenant, reserved rights on the property by the owner, etc.
EPA’s Guidance is a welcome clarification of how the agency intends to enforce CERCLA’s owner liability provisions in these situations. However, the Guidance goes beyond the derivative status language in the Brownfields Amendments in its discussion of potential limitations on tenant “owner” liability. The problem is that a guidance is just that. It offers none of the statutory certainty that prospective purchasers now enjoy under CERCLA.
Because of the importance of tenant-operated properties to the economy in general and to the development of Brownfields property in particular, I would submit that tenants should be afforded the same clarity and certainty with respect to potential liability under CERCLA as those who acquire title to the property. As the Brownfield Amendments are largely self-implementing, that clarity and certainty is likely to be achieved only through further amendments to the liability provisions of CERCLA.
On December 15, Governor John Baldacci received from the Maine State Planning Office and Maine Department of Conservation the results of a search process to identify demonstration sites for offshore wind technology located in Maine coastal waters. The team from the State agencies traveled up and down the coast of Maine over the last four months talking with fishermen, citizens, local officials and others to determine the best areas to take advantage of Maine’s amazing offshore resources. Three sites were identified by the process: The sites are off Monhegan Island, Boon Island and Damariscove Island.
The site off Monhegan Island will be used by a consortium led by Dr. Habib Dagher and his team at the University of Maine, to which I am legal counsel. The consortium was recently awarded an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for this project. The consortium includes more than 30 partners, including private companies interested in offshore wind development. This will be the first deep-water test site in the United States; as Dr. Dagher said, “We have a national responsibility here to lead the country in that direction."
Maine has been increasingly active in the past several years with wind energy development. There are currently 300 megawatts operating or under construction in Maine, with another 450 megawatts of wind in various stages of development throughout the State. Already, Maine is home to 95 percent of the operating on-shore wind capacity in New England.
The Governor said that the potential of our offshore wind resources is even greater, estimated at 100 gigawatts, or three-to-four times the current peak demand for all of New England.
Maine has the greatest renewable protfolio standard in the country, and has established a bold vision of reducing the State’s consumption of liquid fossil fuels by at least 30 percent by 2030. Maine has set ambitious but achievable targets for development of wind power. A State Task Force on offshore energy, with which I have been involved this year, is prepared to recommend this month that Maine have as a goal the production, by 2030, of at least 5 gigawats of deepwater wind power.
The University has the goal for the first demonstration turbine to be operating in the water in 2011. The remaining two sites that are available for demonstrations of offshore wind or wave energy technology are available to developers, who must begin the process by obtaining an expedited permit through the Department of Environmental Protection.
2009 Annual Meeting - SAVE THE DATE!
The American College of Environmental Lawyers is planning its 2009 Annual Meeting for October 1-3 in Portland, Maine. A majority of the conference will be held at the Portland Regency Hotel (www.theregency.com). More information and an agenda to follow at a later date.
Despite the widespread publicity surrounding the actions being undertaken by EPA and in Congress to address greenhouse gas emissions and the potential for a cap and trade program at the federal level, few lawyers are aware that rigorously verified carbon offset credits are currently available for purchase by third parties. Generally, carbon offset credits are issued in exchange for a project proponent’s (e.g., a property owner or other participating entity) implementation of practices and programs which sequester carbon or otherwise reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In some types of projects, CO2 (carbon dioxide) is sequestered in the leaves, trunks and roots of trees on the property, converted into carbon, and held in the vegetation and soil on the property. By growing a forest or managing a forest in such a way that it sequesters more carbon than would otherwise be held on the property, the project proponent becomes eligible for carbon offset credits, which can then be sold or optioned to third parties.
Carbon offset credits are issued not just for forest projects, but also for greenhouse gas reduction projects involving coal mine methane, landfill gases, livestock gases, and nitric oxide emissions. The carbon offset market incentivizes greenhouse gas sequestration and reduction, and provides a product to third parties looking for a way to offset their carbon emissions or otherwise satisfy regulatory requirements.
There are currently few organizations that issue any type of evaluation and registration for carbon offset credits. One of these organizations, the Climate Action Reserve is a non-profit based in Los Angeles, California which has registered a variety of types of greenhouse gas projects and is currently issuing carbon offset credits to project participants. The Chicago Climate Exchange also provides a cap and trade system for six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide. There are other, regional and specialized programs that are much more narrow in their applicability and the types of emissions they verify.
The Climate Action Reserve’s carbon offset credits are the result of a rigorous, third-party verification process to quantify and verify the net greenhouse gas emissions sequestration on projects based upon hundreds of pages of protocols which address details ranging from the modeling of carbon stored in live trees, dead wood and wood products, to annual monitoring requirements to determine reversals of carbon sequestration. In the case of forest projects, covenants and contracts require that the project proponent (e.g. the property owner) abide by the protocols and sequester carbon for at least 100 years.
A variety of legal issues arise about how best to document a project proponent’s commitments over the 100 year period, whether that be through contracts, covenants, restrictive easements, conservation easements, mortgages or some combination thereof. While California’s statutory scheme is relatively clear about what types of recorded documents run with the land, other States provide less guidance. See, e.g., California Civil Code 1460 et seq. Likewise, legal documentation must address a variety of issues including subordination to future encumbrances; future transfers of any subject property; reversals or significant carbon loss in the event of natural disasters (e.g., forest fires, earthquakes, etc.); and remedies in the event of intentional acts in violation the project proponent’s commitments (e.g., failure to sequester adequate carbon stocks).
After a project proponent complies with the documentation requirements, registers its project with the applicable entity and been issued carbon offset credits, it is then available to sell or option such credits to third parties. The market for these credits is growing. Currently, corporations and entities who have made voluntary greenhouse gas reduction commitments have purchased these credits to help fulfill such commitments. Obviously, if a mandatory cap and trade system is implemented either in California or on a nationwide basis, then such carbon offset credits will become more valuable. Likewise, if federal, state and local authorities, courts or other jurisdictions require project developers to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions, carbon offset credits are likely to become more expensive.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher provides pro bono representation to the Climate Action Reserve. Posting submitted by: Patrick W. Dennis, Charles H. Haake and Shireen B. Rahnema of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Columbia University has established what it says is the world's first endowed professorship in climate change law.
The endowment will be a permanent source of funding for the director of the university's Center for Climate Change Law, which was founded in January. But it also secures a faculty position in a field that, though relatively young, is growing rapidly as climate change becomes an increasingly visible issue and is poised soon to come under complex federal legislation.
"The policies that are being negotiated in Copenhagen right now and that are under debate in Congress and around the country and the world will be implemented through the mechanism of laws," explained Michael Gerard, a longtime environmental lawyer and the center's director, who has been awarded the professorship.
Climate change law emerged as a field only a few years ago and is now the fastest-growing area of environmental law, Gerrard said.
"It was nothing of a field a few years ago," said Gerrard, who began work in the area in 2005, "and it is now by far the most popular subject of ... continuing legal education programs, as well as law school symposia and special journal issues."
Andrew Sabin, whose foundation, the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, was a major funder of the endowment for the professorship, said he decided to contribute because he has known Gerrard for a long time and "we're good friends. There's nobody better. Ask any environmental lawyer in the country." Sabin declined to state the amount that his foundation contributed to the endowment.
Sabin, president of a precious metals refining company, has worked with Gerrard on several legal cases since the 1990s. The first case was over "some environmental issues" regarding one of the company's factories, Gerrard said.
But Gerrard has not only represented Sabin's company.
A self-proclaimed environmentalist, Sabin has fought a number of developments since the late 1980s that would infringe on the habitat of the Eastern tiger salamander, which is listed as an endangered species in New York state, where he lives.
One fight brought him head-to-head with Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, which was building a mall in Riverside in the mid-1990s.
"The mall hired the best developer lawyer they could find, and I hired the best environmental lawyer," Sabin said. "I did this because of my passion." As a successful businessman, he could afford such suits, whereas environmental organizations often do not have the money to fight them, he said. The case resulted in the creation of a 32.5-acre preserve for the salamanders.
Sabin is also a member of the organization Republicans for Environmental Protection and said he believes firmly in environmental education. As a Republican, he said, he is in a strong position to influence other Republicans' views on climate change "from inside."
"To me, climate change, I believe it's real, I believe it is happening. ... I believe that man has accelerated it; it's not reversible," he said. "By establishing this [endowed professorship], hopefully, a lot of people are going to be educated on climate change."
Gerrard said the number of lawyers dedicated to climate change law in the United States is still "modest."
Hannah Chang, deputy director of the Columbia Climate Center and a postdoctoral research fellow at the university, said that much climate change law work in the United States currently centers on litigation.
Litigation can include everything from attempts to force the government to act -- for example, to regulate greenhouse gases -- to challenges to government regulations -- such as vehicle standards -- to suits seeking monetary redress from corporations for damages from climate change.
In one case, landowners in Mississippi brought a suit against oil, chemical, and coal companies based on the claim that Hurricane Katrina was made worse by climate change, Gerrard said.
But as U.S. EPA prepares to release its rules on greenhouse gas emission regulation, and as Congress debates sweeping climate legislation, the legal community is gearing up for much more work in the area.
"Most, if not all, of the law firms with environmental practices are educating themselves and trying to position themselves to do the work when it comes," Gerrard said.
Besides litigation, climate change law could range from regulatory advice to transactional work to lobbying to corporate compliance advice regarding securities disclosures, Gerrard said.
"Treaties and statutes and regulations will be required to determine what emissions are permissible, who will bear the costs, what energy efficiency improvements will be required, how the nations of the world will deal with each other on these issues, how buildings will achieve energy savings -- a whole host of issues will be subject to laws," Gerrard said.
Climate change law is a sweeping area and goes beyond simple environmental law, Gerrard said, who has worked in environmental law for 30 years.
Energy law, corporate law, securities law, tax law, transportation law, agricultural law, international law, trade law and other fields are all involved, he said.
On December 7, 2009, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stated that greenhouse gases (GHGs) “threaten the public health and welfare of the American people”. This CAA endangerment finding was what everyone had expected due to the strong proposed finding and the inevitable result of legislation that the Obama administration has been supporting.
Now that the U.S. has a position to take to Copenhagen - either EPA or Congress will tackle and reduce GHGs - so count on the U.S. to do its part. Despite all the discussions about the costs of the U.S. policy on the U.S. economy, which are not close to being resolved, where will the money come from to help the 3rd World countries? Amounts of $10B a year and upwards of hundreds of billions of dollars are used like the money is easily available in today’s economy.
If GHGs are a serious threat, reductions are necessary and need to start soon. However, let’s be very careful to not to solve the problem by pushing the cost of energy so high that most of the world will eventually enjoy clearer skies and air, while sitting in the dark or shivering during the winter months.
In shifting to cleaner fuel sources like natural gas (or solar or wind) as preferred sources of energy we need to be certain that the supply system can be created in a cost-effective manner and in time to meet the GHG emissions reduction goals. We also need to be sure that siting such generation facilities meets with the expectations of the host communities.
I suspect most of us did not go into environmental law to see how much money we could make as lawyers, but because we care about preserving and protecting the planet. While many of us, particularly in the private sector, have made a good living practicing environmental law, I believe it is our interest in and dedication to the subject matter and the outcomes that have attracted and kept most of us in this field. Most of us are “green” at heart and want to do well while doing good for the environment. Environmental pro bono work provides an opportunity to “give back” to the planet in ways private practice may not.
While we can do much good in private practice, the economic realities of private environmental practice impose some significant limitations on what we work on – generally solving the problems that our clients are willing to pay us to address that serve their business interests. To some extent, most of us are constrained to work on yesterday’s environmental problems – those which are regulated and for which clients will pay us to solve. Relatively few of us get a chance to work for paying clients on the great environmental issues of our time that will determine the future of life on earth: climate change, sustainable development and business practices, tropical forest preservation and species conservation, the impact of environmental degradation on the poor.
One way for those of us in private practice who are environmentalists at heart to more affirmatively work on the side of the environment and thereby increase our professional satisfaction and impact is to do environmental pro bono work. Pro bono work is generally defined by ABA Model Rule 6.1 and the Pro Bono Institute as performing legal work outside the ordinary course of commercial practice and without expectation of a fee, for persons of limited means or charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental or educational organizations, where such services are focused primarily to address the needs of persons of limited means, or to secure or protect civil rights, civil liberties or public rights. An additional category of pro bono work involves providing legal services to charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental or educational organizations in matters that further their organizational purposes. Environmental pro bono work typically involves the protection of public rights and the representation of nonprofit organizations in furtherance of their environmental missions. Many law firms have committed to the Pro Bono Institute’s Pro Bono Challenge, committing to dedicate at least 3% of the firm’s billable hours to pro bono work.
Environmental pro bono work is a way for environmental lawyers to use their skills and experience to promote the environmental values that inspired us to practice environmental law. Environmental pro bono practice can include a variety of litigation and transactional work and related legal advice designed to conserve or protect resources, lay the groundwork for new laws or regulations, enforce existing environmental laws, and prevent or mitigate adverse environmental impacts to various environmental resources or disadvantaged communities. The latter, focusing on preventing adverse environmental impacts on low income, minority or other disadvantaged communities is typically described as “environmental justice” work. In Massachusetts, a referral clearinghouse called the Massachusetts Environmental Justice Assistance Network (MEJAN) has been set up by a non-profit organization and the Environmental Law Section of the Boston Bar Association to link environmental lawyers and consultants with community groups seeking legal assistance.
Environmental pro bono work is often harder to come by than traditional pro bono work. One problem, particularly in a large law firm, is conflicts. In addition to the obvious ethical prohibition on handling matters directly adverse to a firm’s clients, proposed environmental pro bono work often raises “issue conflicts” where the proposed representation would involve representing an organization or position that might be considered generally adverse to the interests of the firm’s current or prospective clients (e.g., real estate developers, power companies or manufacturers), have the potential to create an adverse precedent for an important industry, or involve representation of interests and positions that some clients (or partners) do not like. In theory, pro bono clients and representations should be subject to the same ethical and conflicts standards as work for paying clients, but in practice this can be difficult to achieve given the politics and economics involved.
Regarding potential issue conflicts, there is a respectable argument that may be persuasive at least to enlightened clients (and partners) that it is helpful to be represented by lawyers who have worked on the other side of an issue, represented or have good relationships with adversaries and have a deeper understanding of the relevant environmental issues and perspectives. A lawyer who has worked on both the “environmental” and “regulated community” sides of an issue should be able to provide better advice and may have more credibility with regulators and citizen group adversaries that will be useful in negotiating a solution. Also, in our work for paying clients, it is not uncommon to take inconsistent positions for different clients in different matters, and to represent both plaintiffs and defendants or buyers and sellers.
Some types of environmental pro bono work may be less problematic in terms of client or issue conflicts. These may include conservation work for non-profits like The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land or local land trusts; matters seeking to enforce environmental laws against those government agencies and their operations, activities and projects, opposing particular development projects that threaten public resources, and certain environmental justice cases. Of course, each case is fact and situation specific and may raise conflicts or concerns.
We are fortunate to have the privilege to practice environmental law. Our work is generally interesting and significant – combining law, policy, science, economics and politics in solving complex and important environmental problems. Moreover, environmental lawyers are generally nice, thoughtful and decent people, and the environmental bar is still relatively small, collegial and public spirited. Each of us has the opportunity to do more good for the planet and achieve greater personal satisfaction than our paying practice allows through environmental pro bono work. Finding viable opportunities to do environmental pro bono work can be challenging, but is worth the effort.
Natural Resource Damages - Why Not a Cooperative Restoration Approach?
There’s lots of talk among environmental lawyers these days about how to litigate Natural Resource Damage (NRD) claims, but relatively little discussion of how those claims can be settled through restoration projects. The latter approach deserves more attention.
Last year the Department of Interior (DOI) issued amendments to its NRD assessment regulations to focus on resource restoration through the use of cost/benefit methodologies. Those methodologies compare losses from resource injury to the gains expected from restoration actions. Under the amended regulations they have been expanded to include habitat and resource equivalency analyses for measuring resource losses used in determining the value of project benefits, which value is in turn needed to compensate for the damaged resource. See 73 Fed. Reg. 57259-57268 (Oct.2, 2008).
A project restoration approach can be very attractive from a monetary standpoint. Past experience has shown that the benefits to be achieved from restoration projects can be significantly greater than their cost, with the cost/benefit ratio often being 1:5 and sometimes even greater.
A good example of this favorable cost/benefit ratio is the NRD settlement reached with some of the Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) at the Hylebos Waterway portion of the Commencement Bay Superfund site in Tacoma, Washington. As noted in an article appearing in the Summer 2009 issue of the ABA’s Natural Resources & Environment publication authored by Suzanne Lacampagne and Jeffrey Miller, the NRD trustees determined that those PRPs could settle their NRD liability for a cash payment of $13.5 million. Alternatively, they could underwrite restoration projects that provide an equivalent monetary benefit. The PRPs chose the latter route, expending about one sixth of the amount required for a cash settlement.
Of course, before the restoration projects were completed, the Hylebos PRPs faced the prospect of potential cost overruns. If concern about additional expenditures in the future is of paramount importance, or if there is a need to close out all liabilities in the near term, then an NRD credit strategy may make the most sense. Such an approach involves the purchase, or a commitment to purchase, NRD credits equivalent to the value of the damaged resource once the NRD trustees have certified the validity and transferability of those credits.
This approach is being implemented at the Duwamish River Superfund site in Seattle, Washington, where the city is leasing out parcels of its property along the river that are in need of restoration to a company that will carry out the restoration work and sell NRD credits to PRPs interested in settling their NRD liability. The Seattle mayor’s announcement of the restoration project and credit approach can be found here.
A link to the protocol entered into by the NRD trustees and the company carrying out the restoration projects can be found here as well.
One interesting feature of the Duwamish River restoration effort is the willingness of NRD trustees to consider settlement of a PRP’s NRD liability prior to completion of the remediation effort. See, e.g., discussion at p. 7 of the inventory of properties for the Lower Duwamish River Habitat Restoration Plan prepared by the Port of Seattle.
A related feature of that willingness to consider settlement is that restoration activities will begin earlier in the process, while cleanup is still underway. This in turn can lead to more cost effective cleanup and restoration activities, as both categories of actions can be formulated and coordinated contemporaneously for maximum benefit.
Another example of a comprehensive settlement approach encompassing both remediation and restoration activities is set forth in the consent decree for the West Site/Hows Corner Superfund site in Plymouth, Maine. As memorialized in Appendix H of that decree, the settling PRPs have addressed their NRD liability through a restoration project, i.e., acquisition of property to be held and maintained by the state government as wildlife habitat. The consent decree with its appendices and the November 19, 2009 Federal Register notice of the settlement at pp. 59991-59992 can be found here.
In addition to the cost/benefit and related timing issues just mentioned, two other favorable aspects of the restoration project approach are the positive publicity that can be generated in the local community upon implementation of such a project and the cost savings associated with earlier resolution of NRD liability. With all these attributes in its favor, and with increasing experience in using the new equivalency methodologies and implementing projects based on their numbers, the restoration project approach may yet achieve the attention it deserves.
When Does The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 Trump the Clean Water Act?
In a suit brought by the United States against homeowners for common law trespass to tidelands held in trust for a Native American tribe, the Ninth Circuit held that waterfront homeowners who built shoreline defense structures on this property are liable for common law trespass and for violating the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act of 1899 (RHA).
Between 1963 and 1988, the homeowners leased the tidelands from the tribe, giving them the right to erect shore defense structures on the tidelands. After the lease expired, the homeowners refused to remove the structures or enter into a new lease agreement. The homeowners argued that they cannot be liable for trespass, despite the movement of the tideland boundary, because their structures were lawfully built on the homeowners' property landward of the mean high water (MHW) line.
The court disagreed. Under common law, however, the boundary between the tidelands and the uplands is ambulatory, changing when the water body shifts course or changes in volume. Because both the upland and tideland owners have a vested right to gains from the ambulation of the boundary, the homeowners cannot permanently fix the property boundary, thereby depriving the tribe of tidelands that they would otherwise gain. And although the structures may have been legal as they were initially erected, the court found that this is not a defense against the trespass action nor does it justify denying the tribe land that would otherwise accrue to them.
The court also determined the homeowners are liable under the RHA because they have maintained at least part of their shore defense structures below the MHW line and because the structures alter the course, location, condition, or capacity of a navigable U.S. water. Addressing whether the homeowners had also violated the Clean Water Act (CWA), the court held that it was unclear from the evidence whether the high tide line actually reached the area where the homeowners discharged fill material during their maintenance of the structures. The court emphasized that although the jurisdictional reach of the CWA is generally broader than that of the RHA, the RHA is concerned with preventing obstructions, whereas the CWA is focused on discharges into water. Since the two laws serve different purposes, their regulatory powers will diverge in some circumstances, such as this one.

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