A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2020
Trump’s environmental rollback
could affect the Pacifi c Northwest
SPECIALS FOR
JAN 15 TH - JAN 21 ST
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
A new Trump adminis-
tration plan to scale back a
bedrock environmental law
could affect all kinds of proj-
ects in the Northwest, includ-
ing timber sales, hydroelec-
tric dams and large energy
developments like the con-
troversial Jordan Cove lique-
fi ed natural gas project with
its 235-mile Pacifi c Connec-
tor pipeline.
On Thursday, the Trump
administration announced
major changes to the
National Environmental Pol-
icy Act regulations with the
stated goal of accelerating the
approval process for infra-
structure projects.
The proposal’s critics in
the Northwest say the new
rules are undemocratic and
illegal, and many are hop-
ing they will be challenged in
court and thrown out.
The act requires the fed-
eral government to review
the environmental impacts
of major projects before
approving them. The reviews
analyze projects’ impacts on
air and water quality, wildlife
and other natural resources.
They’re also required to con-
sider alternatives that would
have fewer impacts.
The administration’s regu-
latory changes put new time
limits and page limits on the
federal government’s envi-
ronmental reviews, reduce
opportunities for public input
and allow some projects to
be completely excluded from
the review process. A new
category of projects with
“minimal federal funding
or involvement” wouldn’t
require any kind of environ-
mental assessment.
While the regulations
don’t change the law itself,
they dramatically change
how the law would be imple-
mented by federal agencies.
Market
LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED
WHERE THE MEAT LOVER’S SHOP
Cassandra Profi ta/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Fish advocates say sending water through spill bays is the best
way to ensure fi sh survival through dams in the Columbia and
Snake rivers.
in federal decisions that
impact the air we breathe, the
water we drink and the public
lands we cherish,” Cantwell
said in a statement. “This
NEPA rewrite favors big pol-
luters and corporate profi ts
over balanced, science-based
decision-making and would
prevent Washingtonians from
voicing their views.”
Tom Buchele, a profes-
sor of environmental law
at Lewis and Clark Law
School, said the new regula-
tions make “anti-democratic
changes” that will reduce the
amount of information the
government needs to disclose
about its projects and dis-
courage the public from par-
ticipating in the environmen-
tal review process.
“No one likes to admit
publicly that they’re going to
do something that’s going to
have a really adverse effect or
is going to hurt the environ-
ment,” he said. “Agencies do
change what they’re propos-
ing because it looks like the
impacts are going to be bad.”
Buchele said he was
stunned to see that the new
regulations eliminate the
need for agencies to review
the cumulative effects of their
actions. That could exclude
climate change consider-
‘THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
CLEARLY DOESN’T WANT TO
DISCLOSE THE IMPACTS OF
OIL AND GAS TERMINALS
OR PIPELINES OR OTHER
CLIMATE-WRECKING PROPOSALS.’
Brett VandenHeuvel | executive director of the
environmental nonprofi t Columbia Riverkeeper
In its announcement, the
administration said the cur-
rent regulations have ham-
pered the approval of proj-
ects involving roads, bridges,
airports, railways and water-
ways and that the changes
will modernize the 50-year-
old law so that new projects
can be built in a “timely, effi -
cient and affordable manner.”
U.S. Sen . Maria Cantwell,
D-Wash., and Sen. Jeff Merk-
ley, D-Ore., were quick to
slam the proposal for exclud-
ing climate change as one of
the environmental impacts
agencies would need to con-
sider under the act .
“NEPA has provided gen-
erations of Americans a say
ations from reviews, he said,
but it also would affect things
like how the U.S. Forest Ser-
vice reviews the environmen-
tal impacts of its timber sales
on nearby watersheds.
If the agency has more
than one timber sale in a
watershed, the act would
normally require the agency
to review the cumulative
impacts of all of its timber
sales on that watershed.
“It prevents the agency
from splitting things up and
saying, ‘Well this thing that
we’re doing here is not going
to have an effect,’ when in
fact they’re doing fi ve things
that together will have big
impacts,” Buchele said.
The new regulations
would also exempt con-
fi ned animal feeding opera-
tions that have federal loans
or loan guarantees, Buchele
said, and they would intro-
duce a bond requirement for
anyone trying to get the court
to halt a federal action.
“That’s huge,” he said. “If
there’s a bond requirement
imposed on small environ-
mental groups it’s going to
keep them from going into
court.”
Buchele said the changes
might not affect projects that
have already gone through
the process, such as the Jor-
dan Cove LNG project and
Pacifi c Connector pipeline.
Brett
VandenHeuvel,
executive director of the
environmental
nonprofi t
Columbia Riverkeeper, said
the act is responsible for key
government analyses of envi-
ronmental impacts of oil and
coal terminals proposed in
the Northwest and dam oper-
ations in the Columbia River
b asin.
“By requiring agencies to
disclose the impacts of these
projects to the people, it leads
to better decisions,” he said.
“Sometimes it leads to proj-
ects changing. Sometimes
it leads to projects being
denied.”
VandenHeuvel said the
Trump administration is try-
ing to “gut” a fundamental
right of Americans to know
the impacts of government
actions.
“The Trump administra-
tion clearly doesn’t want to
disclose the impacts of oil
and gas terminals or pipe-
lines or other climate-wreck-
ing proposals,” he said.
“They would rather see
industry have a free ride to do
these projects without public
involvement.”
VandenHeuvel said he
thinks the new regulations
are illegal and hopes they
will be challenged in court
and thrown out.
Buchele said he’s not so
sure about that outcome.
“I hope that’s true,”
Buchele said. “But Trump
has done quite a job trans-
forming the judiciary, and I
think some of the judges he
has put on the federal bench
are not going to have a prob-
lem with this.”
There will be a 60-day
public comment period on
the rules and two public hear-
ings before the fi nal regula-
tions can go through.
Feds see minimal impact on
wildlife in proposed LNG project
Jordan Cove
project at Coos Bay
Associated Press
COOS BAY — Federal
authorities suggested the
environmental impact of a
proposed liquefi ed natural
gas terminal and pipeline in
southern Oregon would be
minimal, saying the conten-
tious project wouldn’t jeop-
ardize protected species or
adversely change their criti-
cal habitat.
The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Adminis-
tration said its review shows
that the affects of the pro-
posed Jordan Cove lique-
fi ed natural gas terminal
and a 230-mile feeder pipe-
line along Coos Bay would
be short term or on a small
scale, and dispersed broadly
across 250 miles.
The biological study
done by NOAA scientists
reviewed 17 species listed
under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act and their critical
habitats, including whales,
sea turtles, salmon and other
fi sh species.
In November, the Fed-
eral Energy Regulatory
Commission’s staff in its
fi nal environmental analy-
sis concluded that the con-
tentious natural gas export
project would likely have an
adverse affect on wildlife,
including 18 federally-listed
or proposed threatened and
endangered species.
The proposed marine ter-
minal, in Coos Bay, would
allow export of American
liquid natural gas to Asia,
and it would have a 230-
mile feeder pipeline from an
interstate gas hub in Klam-
ath County. The pipeline
would transport the natural
gas, which would be con-
verted from a vapor to more
compact liquid natural gas
for export.
“NOAA’s opinion on Jor-
dan Cove will pave the way
for more American jobs and
vastly expanded exports of
domestically sourced liq-
uefi ed natural gas to prized
Asian markets,” Secretary of
Commerce Wilbur Ross said
in NOAA’s announcement.
“The speed of this decision
was only made possible by
recent reforms to the infra-
structure permitting process,
while still allowing the rele-
vant authorities ample time
to determine that no species
or critical habitat would be
jeopardized.”
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