Source: https://lvgaldieri.com/tag/industrial-development/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 16:51:42+00:00

Document:
It turns out Marquette County Road Commission v. EPA, the mining haul route case I’ve followed for a few years, is not dead yet. Back in June, the Sixth Circuit denied a petition for an en banc hearing. That seemed the end of it. Now, a TV6 report says that the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Mark Miller is talking — once again — about Supreme Court review.
the U.S. Supreme Court will read our petition, review our case on the merits, ultimately, and agree with us that the road commission’s plan as approved by the state should at least be considered by a judge as compared to the EPAs decision to reject that plan.
If I follow what Miller’s saying here, the Supreme Court is going to review a case that was denied en banc hearing at the Sixth Circuit, and then recommend that a judge — what judge? an administrative law judge? in what court? — consider the Road Commission’s plan and weigh it against the objections of the EPA. I think I got that right.
the purpose of the lawsuit is to have the U.S. Supreme Court review the decision of the Michigan Appeals Court to side with the EPA and to get an explanation as to why the the EPA turned down the permit in the first place….Iwanicki says he wants answers on the EPA’s decision. He says the road commission was not given a solid answer on why the EPA ruled against the road’s construction.
The construction of 595 would have gone through undeveloped wetlands.
I wonder if these are actual expectations, or if Miller and Iwaniki — and StandU.P., the dark money 501c4 behind the push for CR 595 — are rabble rousing.
Update, 19 December. The Department of Justice has requested a second extension, until January 28, 2019, to file a response. The reason given is, again, “because the attorneys with principal responsibility for preparation of the government’s response have been heavily engaged with the press of previously assigned matters with proximate due dates.” The request goes on to note that counsel for the Marquette County Road Commission does not oppose a second extension. So we can’t expect anything like a resolution in this case until the New Year.
Update, 28 January 2019. The Environmental Protection Agency responded today to the Road Commission’s petition for Supreme Court review. As expected, the reply focuses on the fact the Road Commission “voluntarily discontinued the permitting process” back in 2015, then turned around and brought suit, saying the EPA had acted in an arbitrary and capricious way.
The EPA replies that this is a mess of the Road Commission’s own making.
The Road Commission has repeatedly failed to convince the lower courts of its central contention, that EPA objections amounted to a veto. Instead, when the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality declined in July of 2015 to grant or deny the Road Commission’s application, permitting authority for CR 595 transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Road Commission could have simply continued the permitting process. Why didn’t they? Instead, they’ve ended up here, at the door of the Supreme Court, looking for relief from — what, exactly? their own impatience?
they now concede one crucial point that below they denied: the Corps required the Road Commission to submit a new Section 404 CWA permit application after the EPA vetoed the permit the State of Michigan stood ready to issue. [Here they cite a sentence from the EPA brief, which states:] “the Corps asked petitioner to submit a ‘new’ application.” That factual concession amounts to an implicit legal concession that, in regards to the State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) Section 404 CWA permit application process, the EPA’s work was consummated… Moreover, it recognizes that there were consequences to the Road Commission that flowed from that consummation of EPA’s work in regards to that vetoed state permit: now, the Road Commission had to take action in order to obtain a Section 404 CWA permit—it had to submit a new permit application to the Corps.
Who, exactly, is playing shell games? This argument appears to be little more than sophistry. When the EPA brief uses the word “new” at the indicated place (page 11), the brief is quoting the Marquette County Road Commission’s own petition. That is why the EPA places “new” inside quotation marks. EPA is, moreover, quoting Marquette County Road Commission in order to refute the assertion that this was anything but the continuation of an ongoing review process. To quote your opponent is not to concede his point.
The Reply Brief also cites the recent Weyerhaeuser decision over enforcement of the Endangered Species Act to argue that there is “a basic presumption of judicial review for any party suffering legal wrong because of agency action.” This would seem to create the burden of proving that the Road Commission suffered legal wrong — which would seem to bring us full circle: the Road Commission only suffered legal wrong if, in fact, the EPA’s objections constituted a veto.
Round and round we go. Now it’s up to the Roberts court to sort this out, or just turn it down. I still think the latter is the most likely outcome.
Update, 19 February 2019. A 13 February entry in the docket shows the case has been distributed for conference on the first of March. It is one of ten Sixth Circuit cases up for consideration.
You’ll find my other posts on MCRC v. EPA here.
This entry was posted in Business and Society, Lake Superior, Louis V. Galdieri's Blog, Prosperity and tagged 501c4, corruption, County Road 595, CR 595, dark money, environment, environmental politics, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, haul road, industrial development, Marquette County Road Commission v. EPA, MCRC v. EPA, mining, Pacific Legal Foundation, Sixth Circuit, sulfide mining, Supreme Court, Water, wetlands on November 8, 2018 by lvgaldieri.
Karen Maidlow’s office responded this morning with what appears to be a form letter regarding the proposed lease of a parcel next to the Yellow Dog River for mineral exploration by Lundin Mining.
The letter I sent last week urged Maidlow to look into Fisheries’ sudden — and perplexing — reversal of Kelley Smith’s 2003 “non-development” classification of the parcel.
In 2003, Smith deliberately reversed a 2002 “development” recommendation by Fisheries field staff. Why? Madison of Fisheries said he must have done it “for some reason” and Stampfly of Forestry was “at a loss” to account for it. Maidlow realizes she can’t ignore Smith, so she puts him in his place: “Mr. Smith was not part of the review process, only the approval process”; the former Fisheries Chief was reversed “on the basis of the most recent field review.” The field wins out over the office. The bureaucracy repudiates the bureaucrat. Fisheries’ recent reversal of Smith will likely be upheld.
On November 21, 2002, field staff reviewed the parcel under consideration here for a direct metallic mineral lease request from Prime Meridian Resources, Inc. (Prime). Field staff’s recommended parcel classification was development. Although the parcel did not contain water or aquatic resources, its classification was changed to nondevelopment on August 21, 2003 at the request of Mr. Kelly Smith, former DNR Fisheries Division Chief, as a condition of lease approval. Please note that Mr. Smith was not part of the review process, only the approval process. On the basis of the most recent field review, the proposed classification for this parcel is Leasable Development with Restriction. This means that the sub-surface minerals can be mined, subject to other regulatory review, and any proposed development on the surface would face further review by DNR staff before being permitted.
I’m afraid this already sounds like a done deal, even though nobody at DNR seems to know — or is willing to discuss — why Smith wanted to protect Parcel NE1/4 SE1/4, Section 13, T50N, R29W on the Yellow Dog Plains from industrial development.
This entry was posted in Business and Society, Lake Superior, Louis V. Galdieri's Blog, Prosperity and tagged Department of Natural Resources, development, DNR, Eagle Mine, George Madison, industrial development, industrialization, Karen Maidlow, Kelley Smith, Lake Superior, Lundin Mining, Michigan DNR, mining, Upper Peninsula, Water, wilderness, Yellow Dog Plains, Yellow Dog River on December 1, 2014 by lvgaldieri.

References: v. 
 v. 
 V. 
 v. 
 v. 
 V.