State Putting Up 'Smokescreen' in Bid To Dismiss Fracking EIS Sult, Plaintiffs Say

摘要

New York state is putting up a "legally unsupported smokescreen" by moving to dismiss a lawsuit over a long-delayed environmental impact statement on hydraulic fracturing, plaintiffs in the case said in a memorandum filed March 5 (Wallach v. N.Y. Dep't of Envtl. Conservation, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 6770-13, 3/5/14). The plaintiffs, responding to a motion by the state to dismiss the case, defended their standing to file the suit and repeated their argument that the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has a nondiscretion-ary duty to issue an environmental impact statement on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF). The bankruptcy trustee of Norse Energy Corp. USA and a shareholder of the company sued in state Supreme Court in Albany County in December to force the DEC to issue a Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) on fracking.