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The White House Office of Management and Budget released this week a semiannual document known as the Unified Agenda that outlines the administration's regulatory efforts across all federal agencies. The release of the agenda prompted the Biden administration to acknowledge that it will miss several self-imposed deadlines for proposing major environmental rules, prompting concerns among climate advocates about the delays.
The regulatory to-do list for the Interior Department includes taking action on a number of high-profile energy and public lands issues, including rules advancing offshore renewable energy, reducing methane emissions, and updating regulations governing the management of wild horses and burros. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release in March a proposed permit system to allow for the otherwise prohibited take of migratory birds from wind power and other energy activities.
However, the release of the latest agenda reveals the administration is several months behind schedule en route to achieving these regulatory goals. Sam Sankar, senior vice president for programs at Earthjustice noted that if rules are issued near the end of Biden’s first term, a future Congress could overturn them using the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to scrap any regulation within 60 legislative days of its finalization by a simple majority vote.
“Certainly we would like to have seen some of these rules come out sooner, but what’s imperative is that they come out as soon as possible while being legally defensible,” Sankar said.
Podcast: Estonian company uses billions of gallons of Colorado River water to mine crude oil in Utah
On this episode of The Landscape, Kate and Aaron are joined by Grand Canyon Trust staff attorney Michael Toll to discuss a plan to mine hundreds of thousands of barrels of waxy crude oil in Utah near Dinosaur National Monument, using billions of gallons of Colorado River water.
A loophole in Utah law enabled an Estonian state-owned company called Enefit to buy 3.2 billion gallons of Colorado River water for just $10 in 2015. Now, Enefit wants to use that water to extract oil in the Uinta Basin using a novel method that is around 75 percent more carbon-intensive than traditional fossil fuel drilling. Toll discusses how Enefit acquired its massive water right and how the Grand Canyon Trust is fighting Enefit’s plan.
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There is nothing really to stop them from complying with the letter of the law by offering a modest amount of acreage in areas that they know no one really wants to buy. That is fully within their discretion to do something like that, and there's not much industry can do to really override that in any way.”
