Description: Challenge to coal mining on 2,000 acres of federal grassland in Wyoming.
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WildEarth Guardians v. United States Bureau of Land Management
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 09/15/2017 Opinion Download Opinion issued reversing district court and remanding for order requiring revision of environmental impact statement and record of decision. Tenth Circuit Said Analysis of Coal Leases’ Greenhouse Gas Impact Was Arbitrary and Capricious. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it concluded that issuance of four coal leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin would not result in higher national greenhouse gas emissions than declining to issue the leases. The leases extended the lives of two existing surface mines that account for approximately 19.7% of the U.S.’s annual domestic coal production. The Tenth Circuit rejected the argument that the environmental groups challenging the leases lacked standing, concluding that the plaintiffs were not required to assert a climate-related injury to challenge BLM’s analysis of climate impacts. The Tenth Circuit also said the plaintiffs retained their standing on appeal even though they had dropped their challenges regarding the adequacy of BLM’s consideration of the local environmental impacts that formed the basis for their alleged injuries. On the merits, the court held that BLM’s reliance on a “perfect substitution assumption”—that the same amount of coal would be sourced from elsewhere even if BLM did not issue the leases—to compare the greenhouse gas emissions for the no-action alternative and issuance of the leases lacked support in the record. The court also said, however, that “[e]ven if we could conclude that the agency had enough data before it to choose between the preferred and no action alternatives, we would still conclude this perfect substitution assumption arbitrary and capricious because the assumption itself is irrational (i.e., contrary to basic supply and demand principles).” The Tenth Circuit rejected, however, the plaintiffs’ contention that BLM’s failure to use “readily available” modeling tools to determine climate impact was arbitrary and capricious. In rejecting BLM’s use of the perfect substitution assumption, the Tenth Circuit distinguished the case from the Supreme Court’s decision in Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. v. NRDC, 462 U.S. 87 (1983), in which the Court deferred to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a matter regarding nuclear waste storage, in part because the matter was within NRC’s expertise and at the “frontiers of science.” The Tenth Circuit said BLM was not owed deference in this case because climate science was not a “scientific frontier”; the Tenth Circuit also noted that BLM had acknowledged that climate change was “a scientifically verified reality.” In a concurring opinion, Judge Baldock indicated that the court’s “assertion that climate science is settled science is, in my view, both unnecessary to this appeal and questionable as a factual matter.” 12/09/2016 Brief Download Supplemental brief filed by leaseholder appellee and trade associations on automatic stay issue. 12/09/2016 Brief Download Supplemental brief filed by federal respondent on automatic stay issue. 12/09/2016 Brief Download Supplemental brief filed by appellee State of Wyoming on automatic stay issue. 11/18/2016 Brief Download Supplemental brief submitted by appellants on automatic stay issue. Parties Agreed That Tenth Circuit Could Consider Challenge to Federal Coal Leases During Peabody Bankruptcy. The parties to an appeal by environmental groups of a district court’s dismissal of their challenge to federal coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming told the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that the automatic stay provisions of the United States Bankruptcy Code did not preclude the court from considering the appeal during the pendency of bankruptcy proceedings for Peabody Energy Corporation and its subsidiaries, one of which held two of the leases at issue. The environmental groups, the United States Bureau of Land Management, and the Peabody subsidiary and two trade organizations noted in their briefs that the environmental groups and the subsidiary had entered into a stipulation in which the groups agreed to withdraw their request for vacatur of the leases. Since the sole relief sought by the groups was a determination that the federal respondents violated the National Environmental Policy Act, including by failing to consider the leases’ impacts on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the parties agreed that the Tenth Circuit was not required to abate the appeal. 01/29/2016 Brief Download Appellants' opening brief filed. -
WildEarth Guardians v. United States Forest Service
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 10/07/2015 Notice of Appeal Notice of appeal filed. Environmental Groups Appealed Wyoming Federal Court’s Denial of Their Coal Lease NEPA Claims. WildEarth Guardians and Sierra Club filed an appeal in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals of the decision of the federal district court for the District of Wyoming that upheld federal approvals for coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Among the claims rejected by the district court was a claim that the NEPA review had not given sufficient consideration to climate change impacts, including the effects of carbon dioxide from coal mining and combustion. 08/17/2015 Opinion Download Petitions for review of agency action denied. Wyoming Federal Court Said Consideration of Coal Leases’ Climate Impacts Was Adequate. The federal district court for the District of Wyoming upheld federal approvals for two large coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. The court’s decision in three consolidated cases rejected a number of claims by environmental groups, including that the review under NEPA had not given sufficient consideration to the leases’ impact on climate change. Citing the “very deferential” stance it was required to take, the court said the disclosure of the effects of greenhouse emissions was adequate, but suggested that “today the analysis likely could have been better given the development and acquisition of new knowledge and continuing scientific study.” The court noted that the agencies had not ignored the effects of coal combustion, but that uncertainty regarding such effects was created by the fact that the coal would enter the free marketplace rather than go to a particular power plant. The court also rejected claims under the Federal Land Policy Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and the Mineral Leasing Act. The court did, however, reject an intervenor’s argument that the petitioners did not have standing to make claims that the agencies had failed to adequately consider climate change or greenhouse gas emissions. 11/19/2012 Complaint Download First amended complaint filed. 12/06/2011 Complaint Download Complaint and petition for review of agency action filed. Three environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) concerning the agency’s consent to lease nearly 2,000 acres in the Thunder Basin National Grassland in Wyoming for coal mining, alleging violations of NEPA, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and the National Forest Management Act. Under federal law, coal mining is prohibited on national grasslands without permission from USFS. The complaint alleged that the Bureau of Land Management’s environmental impact statement concerning the coal leases was legally inadequate.
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WildEarth Guardians v. United States Bureau of Land Management
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/13/2013 Memorandum Opinion Download Memorandum opinion issued. A federal district court in the District of Columbia granted the Bureau of Land Management’s motion to transfer a case involving challenges to coal leases to Wyoming, holding that the case could have been brought in Wyoming and public interests weighed decisively in favor of transfer. 05/02/2012 Complaint Download Complaint filed. An environmental nonprofit group filed a lawsuit against BLM alleging that the agency’s authorization of four large coal leases in the Power River Basin without fully analyzing the climate change impacts of increased carbon dioxide emissions in violation of NEPA. According to the complaint, collectively, the four leases have the potential to produce more than 1.8 billion tons of coal, resulting in over three billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. -
Powder River Basin Resource Council v. United States Bureau of Land Management
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 04/26/2013 Petition for Review Download Petition for review of federal agency action filed.