House Introduces Bill to Prevent Federal Agencies From Regulating Greenhouse Gases Under Existing Laws

Date: January 24th, 2017

Explanation: Congressional action

Agencies: EPA, FWS, NMFS

Representative Gary Palmer (R-AL-6) introduced a bill entitled “Stopping EPA Overreach Act of 2017” (H.R. 637). The purpose of the bill is to prevent EPA  and other agencies from using their existing statutory authority federal to regulate greenhouse gases.

It includes the following findings:

(1) the Environmental Protection Agency has exceeded its statutory authority by promulgating regulations that were not contemplated by Congress in the authorizing language of the statutes enacted by Congress;

(2) the Environmental Protection Agency was correct not to classify greenhouse gases as pollutants prior to 2009;

(3) no Federal agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under current law; and

(4) no attempt to regulate greenhouse gases should be undertaken without further Congressional action.

It also directly amends the CAA to specify that greenhouse gases are not air pollutants, and specifies that the following statutes cannot be used to regulate climate change: the CAA, Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SDWA).

The bill would have implications for all of the EPA regulations outlined in our regulation database, as well as listing decisions and critical habitat designations issued under the ESA, and environmental reviews conducted by all agencies (including the Coal Leasing programmatic environmental review).

Secretarial Order 3338: Discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to Modernize the Federal Coal Program / Moratorium on Federal Coal Leasing 

This Secretarial Order directs the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare a discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that analyzes potential leasing and management reforms to the current Federal coal program, in order to help determine if the program should be modernized in a manner that gives proper consideration to the impact of that development on important stewardship values, while also ensuring a fair return to the American public. One key issue to be addressed in the PEIS is the effect of the coal leasing program on greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions from the production and consumption of federal coal, and how the leasing program should be updated to account for those impacts. BLM commenced the environmental review process in early 2016, and published a scoping document in January 2017 which outlines the key issues that will be considered in the PEIS.

DOI also announced a moratorium on federal coal leasing during the environmental review and modernization process.

Deregulatory Action: On March 28, 2017, President Trump issued an executive order directing DOI to “take all steps necessary and appropriate to amend or withdraw” Secretarial Order 3338, consistent with the President’s goals of promoting domestic energy production and revitalizing the coal industry. The order also directed DOI to “lift any and all moratoria on Federal land coal leasing activities related to Order 3338.”

On March 29, 2017, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed a secretarial order aimed at implementing the Executive Order. Secretarial Order 3348 revokes Secretarial Order 3338, thus terminating the moratorium on federal coal leasing as well as the programmatic environmental review of the federal coal leasing program.

Litigation: Immediately after the orders were issued, a coalition of environmental groups and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe filed a lawsuit challenging DOI’s decision to reverse course and lift the moratorium without having completed the programmatic environmental review.