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Full-Text Articles in Energy and Utilities Law
Vecinos Para El Bienestar De La Comunidad Costera V. Ferc, Malcolm M. Gilbert
Vecinos Para El Bienestar De La Comunidad Costera V. Ferc, Malcolm M. Gilbert
Public Land & Resources Law Review
The D.C. Circuit Court remanded three Brownsville, TX LNG approval orders to FERC for failing to adequately explain conclusions around environmental justice and climate concerns. The Court ordered FERC to reevaluate whether the projects are in the public interest. The LNG terminals and pipeline will disproportionately impact low-income, minority communities, and substantial greenhouse gas emissions from production and export will contribute to anthropogenic climate change. This case note explores the role that environmental justice and climate change play in federal agency decision-making processes, analyzes the legal framework for the Court's decision, and discusses how the outcome of this litigation could …
Highway Culverts, Salmon Runs, And The Stevens Treaties: A Century Of Litigating Pacific Northwest Tribal Fishing Rights, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Isaac Stevens, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest during 1854 and 1855. A century and a half later in 2001, the United States joined 21 Indian tribes in filing a Request for Determination in the United States District Court for the District of Washington. Plaintiffs alleged the State of Washington had violated those 150-year-old treaties, which remained in effect, by building and maintaining culverts under roads that prevented salmon passage. This litigation eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor …
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Public Land & Resources Law Review
As demand and consumption of natural gas increases, so will drilling operations to extract the natural gas on federal public lands. Fueled by the shale gas revolution, natural gas drilling operations are now frequently taking place, not only in the highly documented urban settings, but also on federal public lands with high conservation value. The phenomenon of increased drilling in sensitive locations, both urban and remote, has sparked increased public opposition, requiring oil and gas producers to reconsider how they engage the public. Oil and gas producers have increasingly deployed the concept of a social license to operate to gain …
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In Friends of Animals v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allows for the removal of one species of bird to benefit another species. Friends of Animals argued that the Service’s experiment permitting the taking of one species––the barred owl––to advance the conservation of a different species––the northern spotted owl––violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court, however, found that the Act delegates broad implementing discretion to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither the Act nor the underlying international conventions limit the taking of …