WildEarth Guardians v. United States Bureau of Land Management

WildEarth Guardians and federal defendants filed a stipulation of dismissal in a case that challenged authorizations for mining on coal leases in Colorado that served as the sole source of fuel for a coal-fired power plant in Uintah County, Utah. The stipulation was filed after WildEarth Guardians and the United States Environmental Protection Agency finalized a settlement concerning the Clean Air Act Title V permit for the power plant.

In an appeal before the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) that concerned a Title V air permit for the Utah power plant, WildEarth Guardians reached a settlement agreement with the operators of the power plant and EPA. In the agreement, WildEarth Guardians agreed that it would withdraw this lawsuit if the settlement received final approval.

The court granted a joint motion for a stay after the parties indicated that they believed they could reach a settlement.

WildEarth Guardians filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Colorado challenging BLM’s approval of the Blue Mountain Coal Lease and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining’s and the Secretary of the Interior’s approval of a “mining plan” modification that authorized development of the coal lease. WildEarth Guardians alleged that the agencies’ issuance of a Finding of No Significant Impact violated NEPA because they failed to adequately address the air quality impacts of expanded mining and the air quality impacts of extending the life of operations at a coal-fired plant in Uintah County, Utah for which the mine was the sole source of fuel. (See here for a discussion of a settlement related to this power plant in WildEarth Guardians v. McCarthy.) The allegations focused on local air pollution impacts, not the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.