Here is yesterday’s opinion in Greater Yellowstone Coalition v. Servheen (USFWS).
Environmental
Water Pollution Regulations Ignore Native Community Fish Consumption
Huffington Post article is here. An excerpt:
For many communities, the consequences also go beyond just health concerns.
“Traditional families are still very active in the smokehouse. They are still fishing for their primary source of living,” says Jamie Donatuto, an environmental specialist for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, in La Conner, Wash. “Fish are not just a source of nutrients, they have cultural and spiritual meaning for these people.”
Donatuto has been working with the Swinomish tribe for more than a decade on the issue. She recently conducted a survey and found that if tribal members had access to as much safe seafood as they wanted, they would consume more than 100 times the state’s estimate.
“In the Pacific Northwest, fish consumption is a way of life. It’s an important cultural hallmark of tribal nations that live here,” adds Elaine Faustman, a professor of environmental and occupational health studies at the University of Washington.
In fact, as she points out, it’s not uncommon to find kids “teething on salmon jerky.”
Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Accepting Submissions
Journal announces new Publication Policy that can be found here. Currently accepting submissions on environmental law, science, and policy topics.
Winona LaDuke on the Keystone XL Pipeline
Here.
An excerpt:
President Obama’s pause on the Keystone Pipeline is a victory for the environment, for sure. It is also a victory for the American people. As it turns out, once the advertising, and lobbying dollars are kept in check, the Keystone pipeline appears as it should: as a sham, a money making scheme for oil and pipeline companies, not the Good Fairy for the American economy.
Occupy Wall Street has been called a movement lacking a mission, a circus of people who don’t understand economics and are simply disgruntled at being have-nots. If OWS were looking for a perfect mission, it would be defeating Keystone XL or the pipeline for the one percent.
Keystone XL is touted as bringing jobs and energy security; the truth is, it will do neither. Even if the pipeline never spilled, even if the tar sands weren’t an environmental atrocity, this would still be a bad deal for the American public.
NYTs: Obama Administration to Delay Keystone XL Pipeline Decision
Here.
Elizabeth Kronk on Tribal Energy Resource Agreements
Elizabeth Kronk has posted her paper, “Tribal Energy Resource Agreements: ‘[A] Great Mischief for Indian Energy Development’ and the Resulting Need for Reform,” on SSRN.
Here is the abstract:
Today, despite political acrimony on many domestic issues, both political parties and the majority of the American public seem to agree that the country should find new, domestic sources of energy. When looking for potential domestic energy resources, Indian country stands out as ideal territory for various types of energy development, as “[t]he Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates that while Indian land comprises only five percent of the land area in the United States, it contains an estimated ten percent of all energy resources in the United States.” In addition to traditional energy resources, Indian country also has substantial potential to provide alternative energy resources. Recognizing the potential key role that tribes will play in the development of the country’s domestic energy resources, Congress and federal agencies recognize that tribes should be included in future plans to develop energy resources. Moreover, many tribes are also interested in energy development to potentially promote tribal sovereignty and self-determination when it can be done in a manner that is consistent with tribal customs and traditions.
Recognizing the many potential benefits of increased energy development in Indian country, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 includes a provision designed to spur energy development in Indian country, Tribal Energy Resource Agreements (TERAs). Assuming a federally-recognized tribe can meet the numerous established criteria, the tribe may enter into a TERA with the Secretary of Interior. Once a TERA exists, the tribe is responsible for managing energy development within its territory. Additionally, TERAs allow tribes to avoid some federal requirements, such as project compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (although the tribe must put an environmental assessment program into place before a TERA will be approved). Despite these incentives, no tribe to date has entered into a TERA.
The article explores the reasons for the lack of tribal interest in TERAs. In particular, the article focuses on the provision that waives federal liability once a tribe has entered into a TERA. The article concludes that this waiver of federal liability is a significant contributor to the lack of tribal interest in TERA provisions. Because the article assumes that energy development in Indian country is beneficial to both tribal governments and the federal government and the TERA provisions should, therefore, be reformed to spur tribal interest, the article proposes potential solutions or TERA reforms that would likely lead to increased tribal interest. The proposed reforms include re-establishing federal liability under TERA agreements, or, in the alternative, removing all federal requirements placed upon the tribes through the TERA provisions in order to allow tribes to exercise true sovereignty. The article ultimately concludes that any one of the proposed revisions should spur tribal interest in the TERA provisions.
D.C. Circuit Rejects FAA Finding of “No Hazard” to Nantucket Wind Farm
WaPo Coverage of Asian Carp Cert Petition
Here.
Removal Begins on Washington’s Condit Dam
A portion of the article from the Seattle Times:
Yakama Nation tribal elders have called the area a “paradise,” recalling stories about tribal members fishing, hunting and gathering berries and other native plants before the dam was built. Tribal houses and drying sheds sat at the confluence with the Columbia for processing abundant salmon, steelhead and lamprey.
Removal of the dam opens up at least 33 miles of habitat for steelhead. Habitat for tule fall chinook will double.
Yakama Nation chairman Harry Smiskin likened the return of fish to the river’s upper stretches to “welcoming back a relative that has been missing for many years.”
“It is sad that the dam is coming out, but again, it is a return to something our Creator, our Mother Nature, created for us and to put it back to as close to its natural state as it can be,” he said.
Michigan v. United States Army Corps of Engineers Cert Petition (Asian Carp)
Here:
Asian Carp Cert Pet_10 26 2011
Questions presented:
This multi-sovereign dispute involves the imminent invasion of Asian carp into the Great Lakes ecosystem. Although the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that catastrophic harm has a “good” or “perhaps even a substantial” likelihood of occurring, Pet. App. 4a–5a, it affirmed the district court’s denial of even the plaintiffs’ most modest requests for injunctive relief. The Seventh Circuit’s opinion raises two questions for this Court’s review:
1. Whether a request for multiple types of preliminary-injunctive relief requires a balancing of harms with respect to each form of relief requested.
2. Whether a party’s statement that it is “considering” implementing the relief requested in a motion for injunction is a ground for denying the injunction.
Seventh Circuit decision here.
Turtle Talk 
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