CLIMATE: White House releases draft NEPA guidance

February 18, 2010

Noelle Straub, E&E reporter

Federal agencies will be required to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change when carrying out National Environmental Policy Act reviews under draft guidance released today by the White House.

In related actions, the Council on Environmental Quality also released draft guidance specifying when there is a need to monitor environmental mitigation commitments made during the NEPA process and separate draft guidance clarifying the use of so-called categorical exclusions. The office also revamped its Web site to provide enhanced public tools for reporting on NEPA activities.

"Our country has been strengthened by the open, accountable, informed and citizen-involved decision-making structure created by NEPA," CEQ Chairwoman Nancy Sutley said in a statement. "We are committed to making NEPA workable and effective, and believe that these changes will contribute significantly to both goals."

The draft guidance on climate change says that if a proposed federal action would be reasonably anticipated to cause direct emissions of 25,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, it would trigger a quantitative analysis. For long-term actions that have annual direct emissions of less than that amount, CEQ still encourages federal agencies to consider whether the action's long-term emissions should receive similar analysis.

CEQ will accept public comment on the guidance for 90 days.

The draft guidance does not apply to land and resource management actions and does not propose to regulate greenhouse gases, the agency noted. But CEQ is seeking public comment on the appropriate means of assessing climate change effects of land management activities so it can decide whether to recommend any particular protocols for assessing land management practices and their effect on carbon release and sequestration.

The guidance says that in an agency's analysis of direct effects of greenhouse gas emissions, it would be appropriate to quantify cumulative emissions over the life of the project; discuss measures to reduce emissions, including consideration of reasonable alternatives; and qualitatively discuss the link between such emissions and climate change. However, the guidance adds, it is not currently useful for the NEPA analysis to attempt to link specific climatological changes to the particular project or emissions, as such direct linkage is difficult to isolate and to understand.

Examples of proposals that may warrant a discussion of the greenhouse gas impacts of various alternatives, as well as possible measures to mitigate climate change impacts, include approval of a large solid waste landfill, approval of energy facilities such as a coal-fired power plant, or authorization of a methane-venting coal mine, the agency said.

And a proposal for long-term development of transportation infrastructure on a coastal barrier island would likely need to consider whether environmental effects or design parameters may be changed by the projected increase in the rate of sea level rise.

CEQ has been asked for guidance informally by federal agencies and formally in a petition filed in 2008 by three groups calling for CEQ to amend NEPA regulations to address climate change. The petition was filed by the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and International Center for Technology Assessment.

CEQ also released draft guidance on NEPA mitigation and monitoring. NEPA compliance is often completed with a "finding of no significant impact," or FONSI, meaning a more detailed environmental impact statement is not required. The draft guidance clarifies that when the FONSI depends on successful mitigation, those requirements should be made public and be accompanied by monitoring and reporting.

The draft guidance also applies to monitoring and mitigation commitments made in an environmental impact statement or a record of decision. The document lays out three goals, saying that proposed mitigation should be considered throughout the NEPA process, that a monitoring program should be created or strengthened to ensure mitigation measures are implemented and effective, and that public participation and accountability should be supported through proactive disclosure of agency mitigation monitoring reports and documents.

CEQ will accept public comment on the draft for 90 days.

CEQ also released draft guidance on the use of a broad categories of activities under which agencies may apply a "categorical exclusion" from further NEPA review. The draft guidance addresses how agencies establish, apply and review categorical exclusions. It encourages agencies to engage the public in some way, most often through notification or disclosure, before using the categorical exclusion and to provide public information afterward about how they were used.

While CEQ previously has sought public comments on the topic, the draft guidance provides additional clarifications, so it will seek additional public comment for 45 days.

"It's very encouraging to see that after 40 years of success in protecting our environment, the Obama administration is adapting the law to help it better address the greatest environmental challenge of today -- climate change," Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said in a statement. "Given the impacts of global warming pollution, considering these emissions under NEPA is clearly the right thing to do."

"Before today's draft guidance on climate change is finalized, we urge the administration to further expand its scope to address global warming emissions and climate change impacts relating to America's public lands in addition to the already-covered federal projects," he added.

Governor Herbert, Mayor Becker Join Wasatch Front Mayors to Encourage Utahns to Take the 'Clean Air Challenge'

SALT LAKE CITY - Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert joined Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and mayors from across the Wasatch Front this morning to urge Utahns to participate in the "Clean Air Challenge."

"Utah is a beautiful state, but that beauty can be masked during the inversions that are characteristic of Utah winters," Governor Herbert said. "It will take a personal commitment from all of us - elected officials and citizens alike - to increase the quality of the air we breathe."

State and local officials, as well as citizens and utilities, have been working together to campaign against idling vehicles, to retro-fit school buses with cleaner technology, to install more energy efficient appliances and to promote public transit and carpooling.

The Utah Transit Authority has already accepted the Governor's challenge. Earlier today, UTA general manager John Inglish announced that Feb. 12 will be "Learn to Ride Day."

"Mass transit is a perfect year-round option, and especially on 'red air alert' days when we need to limit our driving," the Governor said. "But it can also be a little intimidating for those who aren't familiar with the bus, TRAX and FrontRunner systems."

On Friday, Feb. 12, Utahns can ride UTA without charge to familiarize themselves with the services and, hopefully, begin an environment-friendly habit of using mass transportation options.

Earlier this year, Mayor Becker also extended a challenge to his constituents - to make a New Year's resolution to clear the air. Joined in the campaign by Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, Mayor Becker encouraged Salt Lake Valley residents to live a more "air-friendly lifestyle" during the winter inversion season.

"With more than 2 million people along the Wasatch Front - roughly 80 percent of Utah's population - no single business, no single municipality and no single individual can markedly improve the quality of our air," Mayor Becker said. "It's going to take all of us."

The Wasatch Front topography makes Utah particularly susceptible to winter inversions where colder air is trapped beneath a layer of warm air, trapping the pollution next to the valley floor. And the problem is aggravated by a growing population, more cars on the road and a diverse industrial economy.

"It's time for every Utahn to take personal responsibility to address this problem," Governor Herbert said. "This includes limiting driving and idling of vehicles, cutting back on the use of wood-burning stoves and conserving energy in their homes and offices."

Renewable energy, among other sectors, needs non-renewable resources to fuel growth.

by ADAM BRUNS
adam.bruns@conway.com

Mark A. Smith, CEO, Molycorp Minerals, LLC

We need to make better use of selected holes in the earth in order to support the alternative energy technologies designed to preserve it.
So say miners and processors of rare earth elements such as europium, lanthanum and neodymium, which lurk near the bottom of the periodic table but top the list of essential elements in such technologies as wind turbines, hybrid and electric vehicles, batteries and compact fluorescent lamps, among other products such as consumer electronics and defense systems applications.
Today, some 97 percent of the 125,000 tons of rare earths sold each year come from China, especially the Baotou region. And that nation knows what it possesses: Over the past few years, it’s taken steps to limit rare-earth exports, and has made it clear that companies needing an assured supply of these materials would be well advised to set up shop in China.
There are only two other generally recognized locations on the planet with rare earth deposits rich enough to be economically extracted: One is in Western Australia, and the other is in Mountain Pass, Calif., on the edge of the Mojave National Preserve just west of the Nevada state line. The U.S. Geological Survey once referred to the Mountain Pass rare earth deposit, in operation for the past 57 years, as “the greatest concentration of rare-earth minerals now known.” What’s more, it has all critical permits, including renewal of a 30-year mining and reclamation plan.
Previously operated by Chevron subsidiary Chevron Mining, the mine was purchased by an investors group on October 1, 2008, when Molycorp Minerals, LLC, was formed to operate it. Mark Smith, CEO of the Colorado-based firm, plans to expand operations at the site tenfold, from a current output of just over 2,000 tons per annum (well under capacity) to 20,000 tons by mid-2012. What’s more, the company will create hundreds of jobs in the process, as it expands and integrates its scope of operations from today’s mining and production of ore and concentrates to an entire range of products such as metals, alloys and magnets.
“Right now we have 120 people in the company,” says Smith in a phone interview from Molycorp’s offices just south of downtown Denver. “We’ll probably grow that to 150 this year, as we ramp up production. By 2012, we should be a company that has roughly 1,000 employees.”
In addition, he says, the company will employ an average of 700 construction employees a day during the 18- to 22-month construction period.
The mine, located on 2,200 acres of private property, has been at low production levels since 2002, due to an inability to compete on price with the Chinese. It was during that same period that Magnaquench, the world’s largest producer of bonded Neodymium magnetic powders, was forced by cost considerations to relocate its operations and 225 jobs from Indiana to China in 2003.
But Smith says Molycorp has been perfecting processing capabilities in order to be cost-competitive with any rare earth producer in the world. One benchmark: “We will need less than half of the ore from the mine to produce the same amount of material we used to produce in the 1980s and ’90s.” Helping support future growth is a nearly complete study of the deposit itself, which Smith says shows “that the resource is larger than has ever been reported before.”