Saturday, April 11, 2009

Regarding Environmental Review and 'Secondary Impacts'

Attorney Jesse Souki posted an outstanding analysis today, Environmental Review Without Secondary Impacts Analysis—Is Hawaii About to Throw Out the Baby with the Bathwater?
and Reappointment of LUC Commissioners; Environmental Council Member Resigns Under Protest, on his blog Hawaii Land Use Law & Policy.

A couple brief quotes from Mr. Souki's 'Secondary Impacts' Analysis:

In an odd twist to the Hawaii Superferry drama, it has been suggested that in order to save the Hawaii Superferry, secondary impact analysis should be removed from Hawaii’s environmental review process. See Momentum grows at Capitol to bring Superferry back to Hawaii and Former State Attorney General Has Plan to Save The Superferry. What would this mean for Hawaii and what’s at stake?...

With many good cites and concluding that:

The middle road. Throwing out secondary and cumulative analysis might be premature without further study. Other state environmental policy acts (“SEPA”) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (“NEPA”) require secondary and cumulative analysis in their environmental documents. Hawaii should strive to keep HEPA as consistent with NEPA as possible to facilitate coordination for projects that require both HEPA and NEPA documents. For the most part, our courts have deferred to NEPA decisions in federal courts as guidance for interpreting HEPA...

Recommend reading all of Souki's post.

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