Energy and Environment Monitor

Southern District of West Virginia Rules That Permit Validity Cannot Form the Basis of a SMCRA Citizen Suit

August 28, 2019

On August 12, 2019, a federal court in West Virginia ruled that plaintiffs cannot use SMCRA’s citizen suit provision to challenge the validity of a surface mining permit in a suit against the permittee. Order. The Plaintiffs, a group of anti-mining organizations, relied on what has come to be known as SMCRA’s “not started” provision, which provides for termination of permits where mining has not…

Challenges continue to Trump directive prohibiting EPA grant recipients from participation in EPA advisory committees

August 7, 2019

In October 2017, the Trump EPA issued a Directive prohibiting anyone who receives EPA grants from sitting on an EPA Science Advisory Board (“SAB”) or similar science advisory committees formed under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The Directive was immediately challenged by advocacy groups which had long succeeded in placing sympathizers, many from academic communities and non-profits that…

No Uranium Mining in Virginia; Supreme Court Finds Mining Prohibition within State’s Power

July 2, 2019

Observant readers may remember that a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a mining case, a somewhat rare event for the Court. The case examined whether the Commonwealth of Virginia interfered with an area of law preempted by Congress under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (AEA) when it enacted a 1981 moratorium to prohibit uranium mining. In an unusual three-way decision issued on June…

U.S. Supreme Court Removes One Hurdle in Takings Cases Against State and Local Governments

June 27, 2019

Rose Mary Knick owns 90 acres outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her property includes a residence, pasture and a small graveyard where the ancestors of neighbors are supposedly buried. Her Township adopted an ordinance, that broadly defined cemeteries to include the graveyard and that required her to keep it “open and accessible to the general public during daylight hours.” After a Township “Code…

The Administrative State Crumbles

June 17, 2019

The EPA issued a new guidance document on June 7th instructing other federal agencies and the states how they should interpret and implement §401 of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). Individually, it is a modest step taken to fulfill an executive order issued earlier this year and will be followed by a new rule updated existing EPA’s §401 regulations. Viewed in context, it is another brick removed…

Sierra Club Targets Multiple Companies Under Clean Water Act

June 4, 2019

The Sierra Club and four other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) announced on June 4, 2019 that they are sending Notices of Intent to Sue (NOIs) nine companies in West Virginia and Pennsylvania in federal court for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA).  The notices allege that a total of fifteen facilities owned by the…

Violating the Constitution in the Name of the Environment

June 3, 2019

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no private property shall be taken for public use, without “just compensation.”  West Virginia’s Constitution contains a similar prohibition.

But the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) has felt compelled to violate this most basic right.  And, strangely, it has used environmental laws to do so.

The Background…

Our Long National Nightmare is Over (and We Can Finally Mine Some Coal)

May 19, 2019

“[O]ur long national nightmare is over.” [1]

On May 15 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a partial owner of the surface may grant the right to mine the coal beneath the severed surface estate notwithstanding the objections of the remaining surface owners. The Court concluded that the right to mine was correctly determined as a matter of Kentucky property law, that the state agency’s…

EPA Denies Any Jurisdiction over Groundwater in New Interpretative Rule

May 12, 2019

The U.S. EPA issued an interpretative rule on April 12 which establishes some long-sought clarity to the question of whether a discharge of pollutants into groundwater is subject to its regulation and permitting. The agency concluded that such discharges, even when the pollutants reach navigable waters regulated under the Clean Water Act, are not subject to its permitting authority under §402 of…

NRDC Claims WVDEP's Underground Injection Program for the Oil and Gas Industry is Deficient

May 8, 2019

The Natural Resource Defenses Council (“NRDC”), assisted by the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, has issued a report claiming that West Virginia’s groundwater is not adequately protected from underground injection. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/west-virginia-groundwater-underground-injection-report.pdf. The Underground Injection Control (“UIC”) program originated from…

Rockwool Plant Developer in WV Sues School Board for Threatening to Condemn Project Property

April 15, 2019

The proposed Rockwool insulation manufacturing facility in Jefferson County, West Virginia has seen more than its share of opposition from local residents. Most recently, county residents blocked access to the Danish Embassy in Washington to express their disapproval of the facility, which is a subsidiary of a Denmark-based company. Now, Rockwool and one of its original supporters, the Jefferson…

The Green New Deal Meets Physics

April 11, 2019

A new report by the Manhattan Institute explains that while greater efficiencies can be gained by electric generators using solar or wind energy, technology will soon bump up against hard stops in those efforts.  See The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking (March 26, 2019).  https://www.manhattan-institute.org/energy-environment  For example, the so-called Betz limit will prevent…