Trump Administration Revises U.S. Environmental Policy (Audio)

in Wyoming, which together supply about of US coal. The court rejected the Bureau of Land Managements determination of the additional coal leases would not lead to additional burning of coal and thus more carbon emissions. Here to help explain the issues are Charles Warren, the head of the environmental law practice at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parento, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. Chuck environmentalists have been fighting these coal leases for years, but the court

didn't actually vacate the new leases. So how big a victory is this? Well, I think that it's still a victory because they have to go back. The Bureau of Land Management now has to go back and actually do a review to try and demonstrate that this won't lead to more greenhouse gas emissions and affect climate change, and

we'll see how good a job they do. They obviously felt they didn't have to do much of a job the first time around because they really supply any kind of data, and they're going to have to supply data, which of course could be subject to challenge and it might end up stopping some things from going forward, or at least setting a new standard for the kinds of analyzes that have to be done before you can move

ahead with these coal eases. So I do think it's an important step for the environmental community, even though it didn't actually stop the mining in its track. Right now, Pat, the decision rejects BLM's perfect substitute argument. Explain what that is? Yeah, the Bureau of Land Management basically said, look, whether we sell uh these leases in this coal or not, uh, there will be coal developed from somewhere uh, and so it won't make any difference. And that's what they meant

by the perfect substitution. The court said, But but how does that how can that possibly be right? When you're talking about twenty as you mentioned, of the nations supply of coal, You're saying that if you take that off the market, it has no effect on the coal market, no effect on prices um And you didn't explain that. You just assumed that there would be equivalent coal, both equivalent in terms of price, in terms of environmental impact

in terms of air quality. And they said, the court said, you just didn't explain that, and we think that just defies logic, and so we can't defer to that assumption. That was the fundamental flaw um in the analysis. And Chuck the Sierra Club said in a statement that the ruling will have a dramatic impact on how the BLM and the Department of Interior assess future land leases for fossil fuels. This is one circuit court in the country.

So is that a fair assessment? I think it's reasonably fair, because you know, the Tenth Circuit isn't exactly, you know, a very liberal circuit. It's not you know, it's not very conservative, but it's still I think it's representative. And what it's saying to the Bureau of Land Management is that you just can't make assumptions and don't do any analysis.

And so I think and I don't think it's that controversial decision because I think that many other courts of appeals might have come up with the same result because they just didn't do anything here except, you know, as Pat explained, they the equivalency theory, which the court said it doesn't quite make sense. And so what I think it's saying to the Bureau of Land Management is that you just can't every time you want to enter into one of these leases. You have to really do some

analysis here. And so they're going to have to sharpen their pencils and actually do some work and come up with some justification for it. And that's a step in the right direction, I think. And how difficult will it be for them to come up with a justification or to get a new environmental impact statement? Can they revise the analysis and come to the conclusion still that additional

carbon emissions have no net contribution to climate change? They could certainly come to the conclusion that that loosing this coal uh is still justified. There's nothing in the National Environmental Policy Act, of course, that prohibits an agency from taking an action and frankly, an action that doesn't really make a lot of sense sometimes and certainly has a bad environmental outcome, So NIPA doesn't have what we call a autumn line. On the other hand, the enter the

whole energy market is shifting so dramatically. Uh this the i S is already stale and out of date in terms of what's happening with coal demand domestically and internationally, the rise of natural gas, the rise of renewables. There's a real question actually as to whether there's a market

for all of this coal. So when they go back through the analysis and update everything that's happening in the energy sector and everything that's happening the coal use here and elsewhere, it may be that there really is no justification for selling this coal, or you'd have to sell it at such a below market rate that you'd basically

be giving it away. I've been talking with Charles Warren, the head of the environmental law practice at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parento, a professor of environmental law Vermont Law School, about the tense circuit rejecting coal leases on federal grounds for climate change reasons. Pat, the Trump administer ration wants to green light these and these Nepper reviews make them short and quick. But now that we have this decision by the tense circuit. Is that going to be more difficult? Well. Yeah.

One of the things that the Trump administration has put in place, and this was through the Department of Interiors, to put a page limit on the environmental impact statements. And of course, uh, that sounds appealing, but the problem is, uh, you know, each case and each program is distinct, and some are very complicated, coal leasing being one, and so imposing an artificial limit on the amount of analysis that can be contained in the document is basically asking to

be sued. And there are certainly had plenty of very skillful lawyers out there, you know, who have been bringing Nepal lawsuits for many decades, who are are locked and loaded, I guess would be the term for that, ready to sue the minute that they start turning out these truncated and our mental impact statements. That's that's a recipe for

losing cases in court. I think. Let's turn now to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress established in night to protect the nineteen million acre territory along Alaska's northeast frontier.

It also has an estimated twelve billion barrels of crude and at its drawn interest from energy companies and their political allies, including Senator Lisa Maurkowski and Alaska Republican Chuck The Trump administration is moving to allow energy exploration in that refuge for the first time in thirty years, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. What have they been doing? Well, you know, what they're trying to do is, uh, there's really been an issue of whether or not you

can conduct any studies before you exploration. The exploration has to be authorized by Congress. But the question is, okay, what about studies seismic studies to determine how much oil might be there? And the both the Clinton and Obama administration says basically, they basically took the position that you can't do any further studies, and you know that that's

off limits. There's there was an opinion by the Solicitor of the Department of Interior while back that said these studies were only supposed to be done for a short period of time and in the eighties, and you can't

do any further studies. And um, that's been that's been challenged before by by not just the energy companies, but really by the states, the state of Alaska being you know, out front there, and there was a court case in where the judge basically upheld the interpretation of the Department of Interior. Now, obviously we have a new Department of Interior who might have a a new view of it.

And what happened in in August, the acting Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service UH instructed the agency's Alaska regional director to update the rule that allowed exploratory drilling between six by you know, striking out those calendar dates. Now, the question is they have to propose that rule And obviously, um, they're They're going to be a number of issues and

they'll be sued. And one of the I think one of the major issues will be what's the effect on habitat of these seismic studies and and UH and and there are a lot of species up there, some threatened and UH and and one of the big I think one of the major issues as I see it, is that the the polar bag because of the melting ice flows, are really using the land more and and UH and

they could be affected by these seismic studies. I think they're they're obviously trying and the State of Alaska is all for it, But whether or not it eventually succeeds, I think is still up in the air. So Pat give us a little bit more of a description of what this an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is like the importance of it, well, I mean, it's a pristine area of Alaska wilderness, the Alaska Coastal Plain, incredibly important, as Chuck said, to polar bear. So it's a major denning area.

As the bear loses more and more of its ice habitat, it's coming on land and spending more and more time there in these seismic testings that you really have to actually experience one of these things to understand just what an impact they have. It's like an underground explosion almost in terms of the sound and the and the way it areas and disturbing their denning activities. But it's also a huge area of concentration of caribou, who, grizzly bears, um,

you know. It's it's like some people call it the the American Serengetti. In terms of the vastness of its wildlife and biodiversity. It's just very remote, very dutiful, I guess, and at LEAs in terms of an Arctic landscape, it's unspoiled. It's one of the few places left on Earth like that, and so why in the world would you want to go there and and develop the oil. The scientists are telling us we have to leave something like two thirds

of the known fossil fuels in place. Even if that isn't going to happen, The question is where do you begin to say we're gonna start leaving some of these fossil fuels in the ground. While the answer should be places like the Arctic coastal zone that serves so many other important social values, you'd think that something might be awful limits. Um, well, let me just get a yes or no from both the You have about thirty seconds. So, so,

pat do you think this would go through? The exploration will not go through without significant litigation, and if it survives that there probably won't be anybody that bid on them and chuck fifteen seconds what about you? Yes, I agree, I think there'll be a big litigation challenge which is going to be hard to overcome. And second one, all right, I'm gonna stop you there. I'm so sorry you go

on forever on this. Thanks so much. That's Charles Warren of Cramer Levin and Pat parent of the Vermont Law School. Coming up. A former sac Capital trader wants to take back his insider trading play. This is Bloomberg