Source: http://eem.jacksonkelly.com/2016/09/index.html
Timestamp: 2018-02-19 05:47:32
Document Index: 740373758

Matched Legal Cases: ['§509', '§509', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 784', '§ 22', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 22', '§ 38', '§ 38', '§ 817', '§ 22', '§ 817']

Energy and Environment Monitor: September 2016
Court Slaps Down EPA Over Improper Disclosure of Private Information
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit handed the EPA an unexpected reversal last week in a case involving its unlawful disclosure of private information to environmental groups. The Eighth Circuit reversed a district court which had concluded that the farm organizations which sued EPA did not have standing to bring the action. More important, the circuit court addressed the merits of their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) claim to conclude that EPA wrongly provided private information to the environmentalists after it had secured it from state agencies.
At issue is information about “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFOs), defined as an area where animals are confined and fed for a specific period of time. Once a CAFO is established, discharges from the area must secure an NPDES permit from EPA or the authorized state agency which administers the Clean Water Act. EPA collected information about CAFOs from 35 states beginning in 2011, all of which was publicly accessible. In 2013, three environmental groups submitted a FOIA for the information including the legal name of the CAFO, mailing and e-mail addresses, GPS coordinates, and primary telephone numbers. EPA concluded that an exemption under FOIA which would have precluded the disclosure did not apply. The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council then brought a “reverse” FOIA action under the Administrative Procedures Act claiming that EPA had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in disclosing the information.
The Court reached two interesting conclusions about EPA’s decision to disclose the aggregated information. First, the “CAFO owners still have a privacy interest in preventing the mass aggregation and release of their personal information by the government.” Notwithstanding the availability of the information, “the agency’s comprehensive listing of CAFOs substantially increases the public visibility and accessibility of that information.” In other words, EPA had no interest in serving as the aggregator of the information for the public’s use.
Second, a general interest of the public in disclosure of the CAFO information did not outweigh the owners’ privacy concerns. The Court observed that the relevant public interest is “the extent to which disclosure of the information sought would shed light on an agency’s performance of its statutory duties [.]” In other words, the public interest vindicated by FOIA is the right of individuals to police the actions of their government, not a right to police other citizens. The fact that the CWA itself gives individuals the right to bring suits did not justify EPA’s FOIA disclosures to promote that outcome.
The case is American Farm Bureau; National Pork Producers Council v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 15-1234, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (October 22, 2016).
This article was authored by Blair M. Gardner, Jackson Kelly, PLLC.
Posted on September 21, 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)
OSM SIGNALS END TO SELF-BONDING
The federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) surprised no one on September 7 when it announced that it would commence rulemaking to revise its regulations governing the use of self-bonds at coal mining operations (81 Federal Register 61612). The announcement formally approves a petition filed in March by the predominantly Western environmental organization, WildEarth Guardians, to prohibit the use of self-bonds. Given OSM’s views on bonding expressed last year in its proposed Stream Protection Rule (80 Federal Register 44436, July 27, 2015), it is no surprise that OSM granted the petition. Although OSM denied the immediate prohibition on self-bonding sought by WildEarth Guardians, there is no reason to believe that self-bonding will remain a viable financial option for coal companies when it commences rule-making.
Bonding to guarantee the performance of reclamation is required by §509 of SMCRA. In most states, bonding has always been treated as an unpleasant and distasteful topic. Generally, the operator’s bond or pledge to reclaim is supported by an agreement with a third-party surety. Subsection (c) of §509, however, allows a state to accept a bond without a third-party surety if an operator has demonstrated a history of financial solvency. Neither the states nor OSM have been comfortable with self-bonding, probably because financial solvency is a principle demonstrated by financial documents which OSM and most state agencies are ill-equipped to understand. Nevertheless, the major mining states have authorized self-bonding since the last major promulgation of OSM regulations in 1983. Until the recent bankruptcies which have plagued the domestic coal industry, few arguments were heard against the practice.
The WildEarth Guardians have a well-documented history of opposing all coal mining everywhere. It is not surprising that it sought an immediate ban on the use of self-bonds. In support of its petition it generated a post-card campaign which resulted in 99% of the 117,191 comments which OSM received as supporting its petition. OSM will likely interpret this result the way that North Korean leadership understands election results in that country.
What actually is fascinating is OSM’s perception and description of the economic landscape which supports the petition.”It is undisputed that the coal market is dramatically different from when our current self-bonding regulations were drafted [True]. Diminished global demand for coal [Very false], competition from low cost shale gas[True], and the unprecedented and continuing retirement of coal-fired power plants [promoted by the current Administration] are clear signs that the energy industry is undergoing a major transformation.” (81 Federal Register 61614). World demand for coal is much higher today than when SMCRA was enacted in 1977 and the retirement of 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power in 2015 has not occurred because the owners of those plants wanted or needed to retire them.
If OSM does not understand the underlying background of energy markets (and there is little in the announcement which reflects that it does), there is little reason to expect that anything that it proposes will make a self-bond program a useful financial instrument to support coal mining. Last July, OSM was clear in its proposed Stream Protection Rule that self-bonds would not be acceptable methods to support reclamation of streams and water quality following mining. The increased financial burdens which it proposed in that rule likely will be found into whatever proposal OSM eventually makes for self-bonds.
This article was authored by Blair M. Gardner, of Jackson Kelly, PLLC.
Posted on September 14, 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)
West Virginia County Court Rules That Mine Operator Is Not Required To Prevent Subsidence Damage To Commercial Gas Lines Where Operator Has The Right To Subside But Has Duty To Compensate For Damages
By Order of August 5, 2016, the Circuit Court of Marshall County, WV ruled that West Virginia’s surface mining rules do not require underground mine operators to take steps—or pay pipeline operators to take steps—in advance of mining to prevent damage to overlying pipelines where the miner has the common law right to subside the surface. Link to Order The Court also held, however, that state law requires mine operators to compensate owners of commercial structures for subsidence damage, even where the miner possesses the right to subside without liability via severance deed waiver.
Pipeline operators had earlier appealed to the State Surface Mine Board the terms of surface mining permits issued to mine operators where those permits authorized the use of full extraction longwall mining techniques. The pipeline operators sought the imposition of two conditions on the surface mining permits. First, they argued that the State surface mining laws required mine operators to take, or pay the pipeline operators to undertake, pre-mining mitigation measures (such as uncovering or moving the lines) to prevent damage to their pipelines. Second, they contended that mine permittees were obligated to pay for any post-mining damages to the lines. The permits as issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) contained neither condition.
West Virginia’s surface mining rules require underground mine operators to “[e]ither correct material damage resulting from subsidence caused to any structures or facilities by repairing the damage or compensate the owner of such structures or facilities in the full amount of the diminution in value resulting from the subsidence.” W.Va. Code St. R. § 38-2-16.2.c.2. The rules also require subsidence control plans submitted with surface mine permit applications to indicate what measures will be taken to minimize material damage to surface structures. W.Va. Code St. R. § 38-2-3.12.d.2. Such mitigation measures can include mining without interruption, which the mine permittees intended to do.
The applicable West Virginia rules became effective in 1996. See W.Va. Code St. R. § 38-2-16.2.c.2. They were adopted in response to a since-changed federal mandate that state surface mining programs include protection or compensation plans for subsidence-induced damages to both commercial and residential structures regardless of common law deed waivers of the right to subjacent support. When a later adopted federal surface mining rule clarified that the federal Surface Mining program required compensation only for residential, but not commercial, structures, West Virginia never revised its program. See, e.g., 30 C.F.R. §§ 784.20(b)(7) & 817.121(c)(2) & (3) (adopted at 60 Fed. Reg. 16722 (Mar. 31, 1995)).
In 1994, however, the West Virginia Legislature limited WVDEP’s authority to adopt rules that are more stringent than their federal counterparts. It enacted a statute requiring WVDEP to issue written findings of specific need for “legislative rules promulgated by the director which become effective on or after [July 1, 1994]” that are more restrictive than their federal counterparts. W.Va. Code § 22-1-3a. Given its applicability to both residential and commercial structures, the mine operators reasoned that the 1996 version of § 38-2-16.2.c.2 is more restrictive than its federal counterpart. Because WVDEP had not issued any findings of “need” when it approved those portions of the rule protecting commercial structures, the mine operators argued those portions of the rule were invalid.
Before the Surface Mine Board, the pipeline operators argued that the permits were defective because the mine operators failed to describe how they would prevent or minimize damage to overlying commercial pipelines. They also argued that WVDEP’s rules required mine operators to pay for any resulting damage even if the surface owners had waived that right. The mine permittees countered that WVDEP’s rules required neither that they take steps to prevent or mitigate damage to commercial structures nor, where they had the deed rights to subside without liability, to pay for any resulting damage. They argued that any construction of W.Va. Code St. R. § 38-2-16.2.c.2 to the contrary was prohibited because the rule was impermissibly more stringent than its federal counterpart and, therefore, invalid per W.Va. Code § 22-1-3a. During the permitting process, WVDEP had taken the position that the parties’ respective common law rights controlled any dispute over responsibility for mitigation and repairs relating to subsidence damage. In the appeal before the SMB, however, WVDEP switched its position as to post-mining damages—arguing that West Virginia’s surface mining rules require coal operators to pay for damages to non-residential structures despite having the common law right to subside and despite the fact that parallel federal rules do not impose a similar obligation.
In its Final Order of January 26, 2009, the SMB adopted WVDEP’s position that W.Va. Code St. R. §§ 38-2-3.12.a.6 & -3.12.d.2 required subsidence control plans and permits to describe the measures to be taken to either mitigate subsidence damages to pipelines prior to mining or to remedy subsidence damage, but did not require mine operators to describe both. The SMB did not require the permittees to take pre-mining mitigation measures (or to pay the pipelines to do so) but did rule that W.Va. Code St. R. § 38-2-16.2.c.2 requires mine operators to repair or compensate for post-mining subsidence damages regardless of their common-law property rights. Both sides appealed the SMB’s order to Marshall County Circuit Court.
The Circuit Court affirmed the SMB on both issues. First, the Court ruled that the plain language of West Virginia’s surface mining rules require subsidence control plans in permits to describe the measures to be taken to either mitigate subsidence damages to pipelines prior to mining or to remedy subsidence damage, but do not require both. Final Order, ¶12.
Next, the Court considered the mine operator’s argument that it was under no duty to compensate the gas companies for damage to commercial gas lines because the WVDEP rule on which that duty rested was impermissibly more stringent than its federal counterpart. The Court rejected this argument. It sided with the pipeline operator’s contention that the West Virginia rule cannot be more stringent than federal law because the applicable federal regulation (30 C.F.R. § 817.121(c)) required repair only “to the extent required under state law.” This recognition of state law in the federal rule, reasoned the Court, meant that the federal program contemplates that state law can impose requirements not mandated by the federal program without being considered “more stringent” than the federal program. Final Order, ¶19 (“W.Va. Code § 22-1-3a is not applicable as 30 C.F.R. § 817.121(c)(3) specifically defers to State law to provide the requirements by which [mine operators] must comply.”).
This article was authored by Chris M. Hunter, Jackson Kelly, PLLC.
Posted on September 07, 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)