350 MONTANA, ET AL V. DEBRA HAALAND, ET AL, No. 20-35411 (9th Cir. 2022)
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Signal Peak Energy, LLC, an intervenor-appellee, sought to expand its mining operations. The expansion is expected to result in the emission of 190 million tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Interior published an Environmental Assessment (EA) in which it explained that the amount of GHGs emitted over the 11.5 years the Mine is expected to operate would amount to 0.44 percent of the total GHGs emitted globally each year. The U.S. Department of the Interior (“Interior”) found that the project’s GHG emissions would have no significant impact on the environment.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Interior on all but Plaintiffs’ claim that Interior failed to consider the risk of coal train derailments. The district court vacated the 2018 EA, but not Interior’s approval of the Mine Expansion, and remanded the matter to Interior to consider the risk of train derailment. Interior subsequently published a fourth EA that incorporated the 2018 EA and considered train derailment risks for the first time.
The Ninth Circuit filed (1) an order amending the opinion denying the petition for panel rehearing, and denied the petition for rehearing en banc; and (2) an amended opinion affirming in part and reversing in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the Interior on all but one claim. The panel held that Interior violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to provide a convincing statement of reasons why the project’s impacts were insignificant. The panel was not persuaded that Interior was required to use the Social Cost of Carbon metric to quantify the environmental harms stemming from the project’s GHG emissions.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on April 4, 2022.
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