Tag Archives: Environmental Impact Statements

More Developments in Off-Shore Wind: BOEM Releases ENF for Rhode Island and Massachusetts

Last week, I noted that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that it had identified an area for commercial wind energy leasing offshore Massachusetts. This week, BOEM announced the availability of an Environmental Assessment to support commercial leases in an adjoining parcel offshore both Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  (Couldn’t find a photo with good resolution.  The figure is obviously in the EA,… More

Dog Bites Man: Environmental Impact Edition

Casablanca36Earlier this week, Greenwire noted a Los Angeles Times story reporting that businesses are using the California Environmental Quality Act – California’s version of NEPA – as a tool of economic competition, trying to kill or delay projects for economic reasons. Much like Claude Rains, I am shocked, shocked, to find that there is strategic litigation going on here. In the past two years,… More

Dog Bites Man: NEPA Reviews Are Getting More Complex

Stop the presses: According to the Daily Environment Report, EPA’s director of the Office of Federal Activities, Susan Bromm, has acknowledged that concerns about climate change and environmental justice are “contributing to the size, cost, and time-consuming nature of environmental impact statements….” Nonetheless, Ms. Bromm apparently asserted that these "analyses do not have to be overwhelming,” and she blamed, at least in part, agencies which “overreact to the fear of litigation.”… More

New York Joins the Bandwagon: Incorporating GHG Analysis Into Reviews of New Project Development

As most readers know, Massachusetts and California have been leading the pack in requiring analysis of greenhouse gas impacts in connection with reviews of new development. Now, New York State is catching up. This week, the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, released its Policy on Assessing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Environmental Impact Statements. The policy is certainly similar to the Massachusetts Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy and Protocol. Nonetheless,… More