Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Utah challenging BLM’s 2019 approval of a 125,000-acre potash mining project in Utah’s West Desert and BLM’s 2025 decision to approve a modification of the project. The complaint alleged that BLM violated NEPA by using a Determination of NEPA Adequacy that concluded the 2019 analysis of the project sufficiently analyzed the modified project. The complaint’s allegations included that BLM failed to take a hard look at direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on resources that included climate.

Challenge to the Bureau of Land Management’s 2019 approval of a 125,000-acre potash mining project in Utah’s West Desert and BLM’s 2025 decision to approve a modification of the project.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. U.S. Department of the Interior

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Lawsuit Challenged NEPA Compliance for Potash Mining Project

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Using laws and the legal system more broadly to protect vulnerable entities

Actions or measures to adapt freshwater, coastal and marine systems to climate change.

Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity.

Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from carbonised plant matter, rich in carbon and hydrocarbons, and occurring in several main types including hard coal and brown coal.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

Jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring the environment. We include jobs which require a high amount of green skills or which spend much of their time on green activities, as well as jobs transforming polluting industries.

Activities of industries that extract natural resources, such as mining, oil, and gas, for commercial use.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves the distribution, treatment, and conservation of water resources.

Lawsuit Challenged NEPA Compliance for Potash Mining Project

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience