Federal Appeals Court Rules: Coal Industry - 1; Faux Environmentalists - 0 -- June 18, 2018

Wow, this is an important story. From The Hill. A reader alerted me to it. If you have time for only one post today this might be it. The fact that the article is in The Hill tells me it's an important ruling.

From the linked article:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected environmentalists’ arguments that the Trump administration has to evaluate the climate change impact of leasing federal land for coal mining.

The three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled that the Interior Department is not obligated to update its 1979 review of the environmental impact of the federal coal program, despite substantial new scientific findings about climate change and the significant role that coal plays in warming the atmosphere.

The judges said that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) doesn’t compel a new environmental impact statement.

In addition to all the subjective comments one might make, in addition to the ruling itself, this is the most important observation: the ruling was unanimous.

The faux environmentalists? I'm sure the plaintiffs arrived in court every day having made their journey in gas-guzzling SUVs and using computers running on electricity produced by coal plants. Whatever.