Loading the player...
Information
NEPA Implementation and Federal Decision-Making After Recent Executive Orders and the Supreme Court's Decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County
Original Program Date :
Trump Administration executive orders Declaring a National Energy Emergency and Unleashing American Energy have driven major regulatory changes, including the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) rescinding regulations governing the implementation of NEPA and mandating agencies to revise their respective NEPA regulations. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Seven Counties Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, which held that NEPA is a purely procedural law, will also drive changes in the NEPA process moving forward. This seminar will discuss these recent developments and the 2025 agency NEPA procedures issued to replace the CEQ regulations. We will also go over day-to-day ramifications for NEPA practitioners and potential legal risks for agencies and project applicants.
Speakers:
Matt Petersen, M.S., Senior Technical Director – Planning and NEPA, SWCA
Chris Thomas, Holland & Hart LLP
Christopher D Thomas, Perkins Coie LLP
Chris Thomas is a partner at Holland & Hart in Phoenix. He has practiced environmental and natural resource law – including a healthy dose of NEPA counseling and litigation – for 40 years. He is a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, proving anew that anyone can become respectable by hanging around long enough. Among other things, he represented mining industry amici in Seven County Infrastructure. An unlikely trophy husband, he lives in Phoenix with his much more popular wife Karen Peters. They have three grown sons and three dogs that pee in the house. He can be reached at cdthomas@hollandhart.com.
Ashley Rena Hardy
Kathryn Meggan Ust
Luke Robert Erickson
Matt Petersen
Matt Petersen is SWCA’s Senior Technical Director for Planning and NEPA. He has 30 years of experience as a NEPA project manager and planning specialist and has managed or provided NEPA oversight for more than 50 large-scale environmental impact statements (EISs) in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. His NEPA experience includes work with most major federal agencies, including Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and the Federal Avian Administration (FAA). His NEPA projects include wind farms, transmission lines, agency resource management plans (RMPs), fire management plans, airports, stream restoration, mining, oil and gas development, pipelines, and power plants.
