Energy

Feds Pay Greens To Sue Them And Ban Fracking In California

REUTERS/Jason Redmond

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Andrew Follett Energy and Science Reporter
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The federal government won’t issue any new permits allowing offshore hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in California after settling a lawsuit with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) Friday.

The settlement not only gave CBD everything it ask for, including a lengthy environmental review, but the federal government even agreed to use tax dollars to pay the environmental group’s legal fees.

“This halt to offshore fracking is a huge victory for California’s coastal environment,” Kristen Monsell, an attorney for CBD, said in a statement. “Offshore fracking is a dirty and dangerous practice that has absolutely no place in our ocean.”

CBD claimed chemicals used in fracking harm marine life and that “fracking emits large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane and other air pollutants. It undermines urgent efforts to head off catastrophic climate change.”

As part of the legal settlement, federal agencies will stop granting offshore fracking permits until a federal environmental review can be completed. The assessment should be completed by May, but the court filings indicate that further environmental analysis could extend the temporary ban beyond that time. Environmental groups have a long history of getting the federal government to extend ostensibly temporary bans.

The American Petroleum Institute, which intervened in the case and did not agree to the settlement, issued a statement saying that an environmental review was not needed and the ban on new permits was not justified because oil companies have been fracking offshore for over 20 years

It’s not unusual for the federal government to also pay for environmentalists’ legal fees. In this instance, the legal fees were $8,826.65, according to court filings disclosed on CBD’s website. The estimated compliance costs of such lawsuits reach more than $100 million annually.

The federal government has a history of paying environmentalists to sue them through a process called “sue and settle.” This is when environmentalists sue a federal agency for missing a regulatory deadline specified under federal law.The agency quickly settles with environmentalists and agrees to issue a rule — all of this is done behind closed doors and without input from industry or the public.

CBD, for example, has used such legal tactics to get agencies to list species under the Endangered Species Act to stymie economic development across the country. CBD boasts on its website that these tactics will end most oil and gas production in the United States.

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