Speaker 1: Environmentalists scored a major victory after years of trying to
Speaker 1: block federal coal leases for climate change reasons. The Trump
Speaker 1: administration wants to streamline environmental reviews to make it easier
Speaker 1: for companies to get the federal okay to mine or
Speaker 1: drill on federal lands, but federal courts seemed to have
Speaker 1: other ideas. The Chance Circuit rejected coal leases for the
Speaker 1: expansions of the Black Thunder and North Antelope Rochelle mines
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, which together supply about of US coal. The
Speaker 1: court rejected the Bureau of Land Managements determination of the
Speaker 1: additional coal leases would not lead to additional burning of
Speaker 1: coal and thus more carbon emissions. Here to help explain
Speaker 1: the issues are Charles Warren, the head of the environmental
Speaker 1: law practice at Cramer Levin, and Pat Parento, a professor
Speaker 1: of environmental law at Vermont Law School. Chuck environmentalists have
Speaker 1: been fighting these coal leases for years, but the court
Speaker 1: didn't actually vacate the new leases. So how big a
Speaker 1: victory is this? Well, I think that it's still a
Speaker 1: victory because they have to go back. The Bureau of
Speaker 1: Land Management now has to go back and actually do
Speaker 1: a review to try and demonstrate that this won't lead
Speaker 1: to more greenhouse gas emissions and affect climate change, and
Speaker 1: we'll see how good a job they do. They obviously
Speaker 1: felt they didn't have to do much of a job
Speaker 1: the first time around because they really supply any kind
Speaker 1: of data, and they're going to have to supply data,
Speaker 1: which of course could be subject to challenge and it
Speaker 1: might end up stopping some things from going forward, or
Speaker 1: at least setting a new standard for the kinds of
Speaker 1: analyzes that have to be done before you can move
Speaker 1: ahead with these coal eases. So I do think it's
Speaker 1: an important step for the environmental community, even though it
Speaker 1: didn't actually stop the mining in its track. Right now, Pat,
Speaker 1: the decision rejects BLM's perfect substitute argument. Explain what that is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Land Management basically said, look, whether we
Speaker 1: sell uh these leases in this coal or not, uh,
Speaker 1: there will be coal developed from somewhere uh, and so
Speaker 1: it won't make any difference. And that's what they meant
Speaker 1: by the perfect substitution. The court said, But but how
Speaker 1: does that how can that possibly be right? When you're
Speaker 1: talking about twenty as you mentioned, of the nations supply
Speaker 1: of coal, You're saying that if you take that off
Speaker 1: the market, it has no effect on the coal market,
Speaker 1: no effect on prices um And you didn't explain that.
Speaker 1: You just assumed that there would be equivalent coal, both
Speaker 1: equivalent in terms of price, in terms of environmental impact
Speaker 1: in terms of air quality. And they said, the court said,
Speaker 1: you just didn't explain that, and we think that just
Speaker 1: defies logic, and so we can't defer to that assumption.
Speaker 1: That was the fundamental flaw um in the analysis. And
Speaker 1: Chuck the Sierra Club said in a statement that the
Speaker 1: ruling will have a dramatic impact on how the BLM
Speaker 1: and the Department of Interior assess future land leases for
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. This is one circuit court in the country.
Speaker 1: So is that a fair assessment? I think it's reasonably fair,
Speaker 1: because you know, the Tenth Circuit isn't exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: a very liberal circuit. It's not you know, it's not
Speaker 1: very conservative, but it's still I think it's representative. And
Speaker 1: what it's saying to the Bureau of Land Management is
Speaker 1: that you just can't make assumptions and don't do any analysis.
Speaker 1: And so I think and I don't think it's that
Speaker 1: controversial decision because I think that many other courts of
Speaker 1: appeals might have come up with the same result because
Speaker 1: they just didn't do anything here except, you know, as
Speaker 1: Pat explained, they the equivalency theory, which the court said
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite make sense. And so what I think
Speaker 1: it's saying to the Bureau of Land Management is that
Speaker 1: you just can't every time you want to enter into
Speaker 1: one of these leases. You have to really do some
Speaker 1: analysis here. And so they're going to have to sharpen
Speaker 1: their pencils and actually do some work and come up
Speaker 1: with some justification for it. And that's a step in
Speaker 1: the right direction, I think. And how difficult will it
Speaker 1: be for them to come up with a justification or
Speaker 1: to get a new environmental impact statement? Can they revise
Speaker 1: the analysis and come to the conclusion still that additional
Speaker 1: carbon emissions have no net contribution to climate change? They
Speaker 1: could certainly come to the conclusion that that loosing this
Speaker 1: coal uh is still justified. There's nothing in the National
Speaker 1: Environmental Policy Act, of course, that prohibits an agency from
Speaker 1: taking an action and frankly, an action that doesn't really
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense sometimes and certainly has a
Speaker 1: bad environmental outcome, So NIPA doesn't have what we call
Speaker 1: a autumn line. On the other hand, the enter the
Speaker 1: whole energy market is shifting so dramatically. Uh this the
Speaker 1: i S is already stale and out of date in
Speaker 1: terms of what's happening with coal demand domestically and internationally,
Speaker 1: the rise of natural gas, the rise of renewables. There's
Speaker 1: a real question actually as to whether there's a market
Speaker 1: for all of this coal. So when they go back
Speaker 1: through the analysis and update everything that's happening in the
Speaker 1: energy sector and everything that's happening the coal use here
Speaker 1: and elsewhere, it may be that there really is no
Speaker 1: justification for selling this coal, or you'd have to sell
Speaker 1: it at such a below market rate that you'd basically
Speaker 1: be giving it away. I've been talking with Charles Warren,
Speaker 1: the head of the environmental law practice at Cramer Levin,
Speaker 1: and Pat Parento, a professor of environmental law Vermont Law School,
Speaker 1: about the tense circuit rejecting coal leases on federal grounds
Speaker 1: for climate change reasons. Pat, the Trump administer ration wants
Speaker 1: to green light these and these Nepper reviews make them
Speaker 1: short and quick. But now that we have this decision
Speaker 1: by the tense circuit. Is that going to be more difficult? Well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the Trump administration has put
Speaker 1: in place, and this was through the Department of Interiors,
Speaker 1: to put a page limit on the environmental impact statements.
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, that sounds appealing, but the problem is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, each case and each program is distinct, and
Speaker 1: some are very complicated, coal leasing being one, and so
Speaker 1: imposing an artificial limit on the amount of analysis that
Speaker 1: can be contained in the document is basically asking to
Speaker 1: be sued. And there are certainly had plenty of very
Speaker 1: skillful lawyers out there, you know, who have been bringing
Speaker 1: Nepal lawsuits for many decades, who are are locked and loaded,
Speaker 1: I guess would be the term for that, ready to
Speaker 1: sue the minute that they start turning out these truncated
Speaker 1: and our mental impact statements. That's that's a recipe for
Speaker 1: losing cases in court. I think. Let's turn now to
Speaker 1: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress established in night
Speaker 1: to protect the nineteen million acre territory along Alaska's northeast frontier.
Speaker 1: It also has an estimated twelve billion barrels of crude
Speaker 1: and at its drawn interest from energy companies and their
Speaker 1: political allies, including Senator Lisa Maurkowski and Alaska Republican Chuck
Speaker 1: The Trump administration is moving to allow energy exploration in
Speaker 1: that refuge for the first time in thirty years, according
Speaker 1: to documents obtained by The Washington Post. What have they
Speaker 1: been doing? Well, you know, what they're trying to do is, uh,
Speaker 1: there's really been an issue of whether or not you
Speaker 1: can conduct any studies before you exploration. The exploration has
Speaker 1: to be authorized by Congress. But the question is, okay,
Speaker 1: what about studies seismic studies to determine how much oil
Speaker 1: might be there? And the both the Clinton and Obama
Speaker 1: administration says basically, they basically took the position that you
Speaker 1: can't do any further studies, and you know that that's
Speaker 1: off limits. There's there was an opinion by the Solicitor
Speaker 1: of the Department of Interior while back that said these
Speaker 1: studies were only supposed to be done for a short
Speaker 1: period of time and in the eighties, and you can't
Speaker 1: do any further studies. And um, that's been that's been
Speaker 1: challenged before by by not just the energy companies, but
Speaker 1: really by the states, the state of Alaska being you know,
Speaker 1: out front there, and there was a court case in
Speaker 1: where the judge basically upheld the interpretation of the Department
Speaker 1: of Interior. Now, obviously we have a new Department of
Speaker 1: Interior who might have a a new view of it.
Speaker 1: And what happened in in August, the acting Director of
Speaker 1: the Fish and Wildlife Service UH instructed the agency's Alaska
Speaker 1: regional director to update the rule that allowed exploratory drilling
Speaker 1: between six by you know, striking out those calendar dates. Now,
Speaker 1: the question is they have to propose that rule And obviously, um,
Speaker 1: they're They're going to be a number of issues and
Speaker 1: they'll be sued. And one of the I think one
Speaker 1: of the major issues will be what's the effect on
Speaker 1: habitat of these seismic studies and and UH and and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of species up there, some threatened
Speaker 1: and UH and and one of the big I think
Speaker 1: one of the major issues as I see it, is
Speaker 1: that the the polar bag because of the melting ice flows,
Speaker 1: are really using the land more and and UH and
Speaker 1: they could be affected by these seismic studies. I think
Speaker 1: they're they're obviously trying and the State of Alaska is
Speaker 1: all for it, But whether or not it eventually succeeds,
Speaker 1: I think is still up in the air. So Pat
Speaker 1: give us a little bit more of a description of
Speaker 1: what this an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is like the
Speaker 1: importance of it, well, I mean, it's a pristine area
Speaker 1: of Alaska wilderness, the Alaska Coastal Plain, incredibly important, as
Speaker 1: Chuck said, to polar bear. So it's a major denning area.
Speaker 1: As the bear loses more and more of its ice habitat,
Speaker 1: it's coming on land and spending more and more time
Speaker 1: there in these seismic testings that you really have to
Speaker 1: actually experience one of these things to understand just what
Speaker 1: an impact they have. It's like an underground explosion almost
Speaker 1: in terms of the sound and the and the way
Speaker 1: it areas and disturbing their denning activities. But it's also
Speaker 1: a huge area of concentration of caribou, who, grizzly bears, um,
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's like some people call it the
Speaker 1: the American Serengetti. In terms of the vastness of its
Speaker 1: wildlife and biodiversity. It's just very remote, very dutiful, I guess,
Speaker 1: and at LEAs in terms of an Arctic landscape, it's unspoiled.
Speaker 1: It's one of the few places left on Earth like that,
Speaker 1: and so why in the world would you want to
Speaker 1: go there and and develop the oil. The scientists are
Speaker 1: telling us we have to leave something like two thirds
Speaker 1: of the known fossil fuels in place. Even if that
Speaker 1: isn't going to happen, The question is where do you
Speaker 1: begin to say we're gonna start leaving some of these
Speaker 1: fossil fuels in the ground. While the answer should be
Speaker 1: places like the Arctic coastal zone that serves so many
Speaker 1: other important social values, you'd think that something might be
Speaker 1: awful limits. Um, well, let me just get a yes
Speaker 1: or no from both the You have about thirty seconds. So, so,
Speaker 1: pat do you think this would go through? The exploration
Speaker 1: will not go through without significant litigation, and if it
Speaker 1: survives that there probably won't be anybody that bid on
Speaker 1: them and chuck fifteen seconds what about you? Yes, I agree,
Speaker 1: I think there'll be a big litigation challenge which is
Speaker 1: going to be hard to overcome. And second one, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop you there. I'm so sorry you go
Speaker 1: on forever on this. Thanks so much. That's Charles Warren
Speaker 1: of Cramer Levin and Pat parent of the Vermont Law School.
Speaker 1: Coming up. A former sac Capital trader wants to take
Speaker 1: back his insider trading play. This is Bloomberg