Lunch-hour NEPA Seminar, Feb. 27 (Portland)

Lunch-hour NEPA Seminar (Portland):
Cumulative Impacts After the CEQ's Rule Changes

Thursday, February 27, 12 to 1pm
HDR Downing Conference Room, 1050 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1800*
* elevator to 18th floor for sign-in, conference room on 17th floor

FREE!

Essentially unchanged for 40 years, last month the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposed amendments to their NEPA-implementing regulations.  See Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 7, Page 1684, Friday, January 10, 2020.  Comments are due to CEQ by March 10, 2020.

One of the most notable proposed amendments removes the adjective “cumulative” from the noun impact.  Environmental impacts are no longer to be considered direct, indirect, and cumulative.  “Analysis of cumulative effects is not required.”  Instead, CEQ embraces the logic of a line of cases from the Supreme Court to the effect that all environmental consequences occur in a chain of cause-and-effect “akin to tort law.”  This is what science knows; this is what the law knows.  This is NEPA going forward.

Owen Schmidt, a veteran NEPA instructor with the Northwest Environmental Training Center, will present an hour-long explanation of the CEQ’s proposed changes along with a compliance strategy for environmental consequences anyone can use if those proposed changes go into effect.  Owen has more than 30 years of experience with NEPA in the Departments of Interior, Energy, and Agriculture.

Please direct event questions to HDR's Carol Sneed.

Space limited to 34. Don't forget to RSVP!