I was inspired by the editorial in The World on Monday, January 23.
I like a little midwinter musing myself, and the premise “wouldn’t it be nice?” is useful, so let’s continue down that road.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Port of Coos Bay, SCDC, and other pro-development interests realized they are their own worst enemies when it comes to inviting outside “well-funded conservation groups” to become involved in our area?
The Port and others do not seem to realize that the National Environmental Policy Act does not give over-riding preference to environmental considerations.
Rather, it is designed to “insure that environmental amenities and values may be given appropriate consideration in decision-making along with economic and technical considerations” and to document this process with an explicitly-defined Environmental Impact Statement. Simply stated, NEPA dictates procedure, not final decision.
If procedure is not followed, virtually any affected citizen or environmental organization has standing to sue in federal court.
In the case of the Jordan Cove LNG proposal, and its attendant infrastructure like the access channel and slip, FERC, aided and abetted by the Port of Coos Bay and others, prepared an EIS that is obviously and grossly deficient under current regulations. Therefore, it is being challenged by the Oregon Attorney General as well as by numerous environmental organizations who perceive a certain victory if and when the case appears before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wouldn’t it be nice if a viable EIS had been prepared that was immune to legal challenge on procedural grounds?
If that had happened, we could be in the process of implementing the final Jordan Cove LNG decision right now. If approval of the LNG terminal turned out to be the final decision, that decision would have only to clear one final hurdle provided by the federal Administrative Procedures Act. Specifically, FERC would have to be able to show, if challenged, that the decision to approve the LNG terminal was not “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion” given the documentation and analysis within the viable and complete EIS.
As to the State-level permitting process, the Port of Coos Bay seems to put great faith in Oregon’s environmental management machinery. It states that “We (the Port of Coos Bay) are not a regulatory agency” and “…other (State) permits are necessary before a coal or LNG terminal could open”.
The State of Oregon’s environmental management system has been described as follows: “Environmental data management in Oregon today can best be described as decentralized, without coordination or clear sense of overall purpose; “ …there is no entity in the state responsible for coordinating the management of environmental data between agencies or different levels of government, no entity responsible for integrating data…; “There is no system to link all data bases to a common network to support the sharing of data between programs or agencies or to combine them across data-bases and fields of expertise; “There are few data that provide an integrated picture of the condition of naturally functioning landscapes and the productive capacity of the environment; “…few models exist and few data are generated to help us understand the degree …to which we are meeting environmental laws; “there is very little ability for working with environmental data statewide to forecast future scenarios or risks regarding environmental and economic sustainability.”
This rather dismal description of the State of Oregon’s environmental management capabilities does not come from me. These statements can be found on pages 146 and 147 of the Oregon State of the Environment Report 2000 which also contains a transmittal letter signed by Governor Kitzhaber and five former governors.
Obviously we citizens of the Coos Bay area, and the Coos Bay ecosystem, are not being well-served by the failure to fully utilize the Federal environmental management processes and the inadequacy of the State systems.
Wouldn’t it be nice if our local pro-development elements and our local environmental proponents could put aside the brickbats and fire bombs for awhile and join together in order to rationally, calmly, and objectively integrate our economic and environmental needs and concerns and come up with a description of what types of development are a best fit for our area?
Yep, that really would be very nice.
well let me take this step for starters.
Did you ask Martin to explain exactly WHY they lied to the World and it’s readers, and I believe KCBY as well, regarding the “emergency” they had earlier last year, and needed another half a million dollars for the “emergency?”
Only problem was, there was NO emergency, it was as big fat lie to the people for a half a million of their dollars.
Did you ask him about that?
When?
Get the popcorn, this is going to be interesting.
What’s the hard question? I’ll get you an answer.
Thanks Ron. Your perspective is always welcome in the public interchange. I listened to Martin Callery on the Mark M show last night and waited for Mark to ask a hard question. Never came. Instead he accepted the Port’s version of everything. And he claims to be a progressive?!
Ima wrong! “Wouldn’t it be nice” if this community had a real newspaper, managed by professionals, locally owned, published every day, with current news, staffed by reporters who have been in the country – even the community – for more than a month – who understand local issues, with more local content than retread AP stories that can be read at MGX or Drudge or elsewhere days earlier, that is delvered to your home before the sun sets?
“Wouldn’t it be nice” if this community had a real newspaper, managed by professional journalists, that was locally owned.