Interior’s Environmental Review Process is Unlawful, Groups Say

The Interior Department is unlawfully implementing the National Environmental Policy Act as it permits logging, oil and gas drilling, and other development on federal lands, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club claim in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California should vacate Interior’s NEPA procedures, revised in July under an interim final rule, the groups say, because they violate both NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The rule was finalized after the Council on Environmental Quality scrubbed its NEPA regulations in April. ...