The Evaluation Team in Massachusetts’ Section 83C Offshore Wind Generation request for proposals (“RFP”) for long term contracts for offshore wind has announced that our client Vineyard Wind was named the winning bidder in the RFP for an offshore wind project to be built off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The project will include approximately 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy generation as well as a generator lead line connection. … More
Monthly Archives: May 2018
Has the Horse Already Left the Barn? FERC Tries to Limit Review of Climate Impacts
Last week, FERC rejected arguments that the Environmental Assessment for the New Market Project should have considered upstream and downstream climate impacts. 
It also announced as policy that it would not in the future analyze:
the upstream production and downstream use[s] of natural gas [that] are not cumulative or indirect impacts of the proposed pipeline project, and consequently are outside the scope of our NEPA analysis.… More
Just How Arbitrary Does EPA Have to Be to Be Arbitrary and Capricious?
Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated EPA’s rule adding the West Vermont Drinking Water Contamination Site to the National Priorities List, finding EPA’s decision to be arbitrary and capricious and not supported by substantial evidence. 
As the opinion makes clear, EPA has to work pretty hard to lose these cases.
Why did EPA lose?
The critical issue was whether the overburden and bedrock aquifers beneath the site were directly connected. … More
Lake Erie and the Limits Of Cooperative Federalism in the Age of Trump
Last month, a decision in a case involving the Lake Erie toxic algae blooms 
demonstrated some “issues” concerning the nature of cooperative federalism. Such blooms have been a problem for some time and pretty much everyone knows about the 2014 bloom, which left Toledo without water for several days.
Notwithstanding what pretty much everyone who can read or watch the news already knew,… More