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Comité Dialogo Ambiental v. Federal Emergency Management Agency
Comité Dialogo Ambiental v. Federal Emergency Management Agency ↗
1:23-cv-00984D.D.C., United States Federal Courts3 entries
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
09/30/2025
Decision
Plaintiffs' and defendants' motions for summary judgment granted in part and denied in part and case remanded to FEMA to prepare an EIS in relation to the programmatic environmental assessment for utilities restoration.
The federal district court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should have prepared an environmental impact statement for the provision of funding to restore utilities damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico and to increase their future resiliency. The plaintiffs—community and environmental groups who the court concluded had standing—charged that the defendants violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by, among other things, failing to consider distributed renewable energy alternatives and failing to adequately examine environmental harms associated with rebuilding the fossil fuel grid. The court stated that it could “not see how FEMA could argue that there is no substantial possibility that the projects contemplated … could significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” necessitating preparation of an EIS under the NEPA. The court was not persuaded by FEMA’s arguments that FEMA was not required to analyze alternatives not submitted by project applicants, that renewable energy alternatives did not meet the purposes and need of the action, and that FEMA was required to give substantial weight to applicants’ preferences. The court found, however, that FEMA’s separate programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) for funding to restore public facilities was sufficient. The court noted that the PEA for public facilities did not encompass restoration or replacement of energy infrastructure and that the plaintiffs did not identify language in the PEA limiting the reestablishment of power in public facilities to fossil fuel-powered electricity.
03/12/2024
Decision
Defendants' motion to transfer venue granted.
The federal district court for the District of Columbia granted the Federal Energy Management and other federal defendants’ motion to transfer to the District of Puerto Rico a case alleging that the defendants conducted flawed environmental reviews for post-hurricane disaster aid. The plaintiffs’ allegations included that the defendants failed to consider distributed renewable energy alternatives as alternatives to continued reliance on a centralized fossil fuel power system. The court concluded that transfer was warranted due to local interest in deciding local controversies at home.
04/11/2023
Complaint
Complaint filed.
Community and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and related defendants alleging that they prepared flawed environmental assessments of the impacts of using federal disaster aid to repair, reconstruct, and relocate Puerto Rico’s “outdated, inefficient, and centralized fossil fuel-based electricity infrastructure and to ensure various public facilities in Puerto Rico had “continued access to the centralized fossil fuel power system.” The complaint alleged that the defendants failed to consider reasonable alternatives such as reliance on distributed renewable energy systems. Alleged flaws in the environmental assessments included failures to consider climate change impacts, including failure to consider how climate change would affect the proposed actions. The plaintiffs contended that reconstruction of existing powerlines and other infrastructure would not reduce the power grid’s vulnerability to problems that are expected to increase as a result of climate change such as wind, flooding, and corrosion from saltwater exposure. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged the disaster aid projects would “actively exacerbate the climate crisis” by investing billions of dollars in Puerto Rico’s fossil fuel-based electricity system, which the plaintiffs alleged would “necessarily prolong the archipelago’s dependence on fossil fuels and lock in years if not decades worth of unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and co-pollutants that overburden nearby communities.” In addition, the complaint alleged that the environmental assessments did not consider how harms from climate change could disproportionately affect environmental justice communities. The complaint also cited climate change risks to endangered and threatened species.