Earth Equity News

White House Releases New GHG Emissions Guidelines for Environmental Impact Statements. By Noelle Straub, Greenwire, February 19, 2010. "Under the draft guidance [PDF, 12 pp] released on February 18 by the White House Council on Environmental Quality [CEQ], agencies will have to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change effects when carrying out National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] reviews. CEQ will take public comment for 90 days on the proposal. Agencies will need to look at emissions that may be produced by projects such as a landfill or coal-fired power plant. They also must consider climate change effects on projects -- for example, whether plans for infrastructure along the coast would need to change due to projected sea level rise. CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley noted the draft guidance's threshold of 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually for a proposed action to trigger a quantitative analysis, saying CEQ tried to 'really focus on projects where there's likely to be effects associated with greenhouse gas emissions.' The guidance also fulfills CEQ's 'long-standing role of providing guidance to agencies so they're not all trying to figure this out themselves; they have some basis to start to, and in some cases continue to, do the analysis.' CEQ has been asked for guidance informally by federal agencies and formally in a petition filed in 2008 by three groups calling for CEQ to amend NEPA regulations to address climate change. The petition was filed by the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and International Center for Technology Assessment."