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Federal judge casts doubt on Trump’s drilling plans across the U.S. because they ignore climate change
The ruling temporarily halts drilling on 300,000 acres of leases in Wyoming.
By Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis March 20 at 11:12 AM
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West.
The decision by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras marks the first time the Trump administration has been held to account for the climate impact of its energy-dominance agenda, and it could have sweeping implications for the president’s plan to boost fossil fuel production across the country. Contreras concluded that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management “did not sufficiently consider climate change” when making decisions to auction off federal land in Wyoming to oil and gas drilling. The judge temporarily blocked drilling on roughly 300,000 acres of land in the state.
The initial ruling in the case brought by two advocacy groups, WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility, has implications for oil and gas drilling on federal land throughout the West. In the decision, Contreras---a Barack Obama appointee — faulted the agency’s environmental assessments as inadequate because it did not detail how individual drilling projects contributed to the nation’s overall carbon output. Since greenhouse gas emissions are driving climate change, the judge wrote, these analyses did not provide policymakers and the public with a sufficient understanding of drilling’s impact, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/20/federal-judge-casts-doubt-trumps-drilling-plans-across-us-because-they-ignore-climate-change/?utm_term=.dae76ee1424b&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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