Latest Climate News Latest Fire News Latest Forest News Latest Wildlife News Too Ludicrous For Words
by admin
Federal agencies may have to consider climate before they act
The Obama administration may issue an order that would expand the National Environmental Policy Act’s scope to prevent global warming. The move could open up new avenues to challenge projects.
By Jim Tankersley, LA Times, January 1, 2010 [here]
Washington - The White House is poised to order all federal agencies to evaluate any major actions they take, such as building highways or logging national forests, to determine how they would contribute to and be affected by climate change, a step long sought by environmentalists.
Environmentalists say the move would provide new incentives for the government to minimize the heat-trapping gas emissions scientists blame for global warming. Republicans have opposed it as potentially inhibiting economic growth.
The new order would expand the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a landmark statute that turns 40 today. The act already requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts such as land use, species health and air and water quality when approving projects.
By formalizing a requirement to consider effects on climate — a step some agencies already take — the administration would introduce a broad new spectrum of issues to be considered. It could also open up new avenues for environmentalists to attack, delay or halt proposed government actions. The environmental impact statements originally required by the act have become routine battlegrounds for environmentalists, developers and others.
Under the order, agencies would need to account for whether such factors as predicted rises in sea levels would affect proposed new roads along shorelines; or whether, because of temperature changes and species migration, clear-cutting a patch of forest would result in new types of trees replacing the originals.
California lawmakers mandated in 2007 that state-level environmental assessments take climate change into account.
“People will think longer and harder and smarter about what they build when they understand that the environment around them is changing,” said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. Bookbinder was one of several environmental lawyers who petitioned the White House in 2008 to formally recognize climate considerations under the act.
The head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley, said in an interview this week that federal agencies “should think about both the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, and the effects of climate change, on decisions they make.” … [more]
Note: from the Wikipedia [here]:
Nancy Helen Sutley leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Prior to being confirmed by the Senate to lead the CEQ, she served as the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the city of Los Angeles, California, and as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s appointment to the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Sutley received a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University.[3] She was an EPA official during the Clinton administration, and served as special assistant to the EPA administrator in Washington, D.C. Sutley is the first prominent gay person to earn a senior role in Obama’s new administration. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate through unanimous consent on January 22, 2009.