Contact:
Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-751-0351, eriksg@westernlaw.org
Today, 73 western community, conservation, faith, and Indigenous groups representing 2.6 million members and supporters delivered a joint letter to Senate Minority Leader Schumer (NY), Sen. Heinrich (NM), Sen. Whitehouse (RI), and House Minority Leader Jeffries demanding they reconsider their pursuit of “permitting reform” that cedes ground to energy and technology industries by targeting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other bedrock environmental laws in the 119th Congress.
Given Congress’ extreme right-wing ideological composition and alignment with the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, any permitting legislation that could conceivably emerge would unacceptably erode bedrock community and environmental safeguards, exclude the public from federal decision making, and diminish the transparency and accountability now required of government agencies by federal law. The primary beneficiaries of the proposed changes under discussion would be polluting industries aligned with the administration’s agenda—many of which are building out a plague of fossil fuel-powered AI data centers that consume enormous volumes of fresh water.
“The first rule of negotiation is that it’s impossible to reach workable solutions with bad-faith actors,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center and author of today’s letter. “Today’s Republican Congress has shown unprecedented hostility to climate, environmental, and community protections. It is glaringly obvious that any changes to our bedrock environmental laws signed by President Trump would sacrifice far too much and compromise the imperative to foster a just and equitable transition to an economy powered by renewable energy. We urge Sen. Heinrich and Sen. Whitehouse to withdraw from negotiations and stand with us and the public lands, waters, and wildlife of the West to build momentum for a progressive permit reform effort with stronger bargaining power after the mid-term elections.”
The primary target of “permit reform” legislation is NEPA. NEPA requires agencies to: (1) take a hard look at impacts to people, communities, and the environment and disclose those impacts to the public; (2) consider alternatives to avoid and mitigate harm; and (3) provide for public involvement. In December 2025, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act (H.R. 4776) passed the House and is now pending in the Senate. The SPEED Act would:
- Arbitrarily narrow the scope of environmental reviews, paving the way for unchecked resource extraction without proper consideration of environmental and community impacts;
- Permit agencies to ignore new scientific or technical research when preparing an environmental review and thereby risk decisions that harm the public interest, and
- Eviscerate the public’s right to seek justice and accountability in federal court.
These changes would reduce environmental review to a paperwork exercise and limit judicial accountability to the point of meaninglessness. Importantly, proponents of permitting reform have also signaled strong interest in changing other bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Historical Preservation Act. These proposals effectively neutralize environmental and community protections to accelerate permit approvals for energy, technology, and other infrastructure—primarily climate-harming fossil fuels.
The Trump administration and its enablers in Congress have demonstrated their hostility to environmental safeguards as well as indifference or ignorance of the public health and ecological effects of these changes by fundamentally eroding, incapacitating, planning to repeal, removing protections for, or fundamentally undermining as agencies the:
- Endangered Species Act
- Roadless Rule
- Endangerment finding on climate emissions
- Clean Water Act
- Clean Air Act
- Methane Rule
- Public Lands Rule
- Chaco Culture National Historical Park protection zone
- Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness protections
- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)
- Powder River Basin coal leasing withdrawal
- U.S. Forest Service
- Environmental Protection Agency
This overwhelming attack on environmental, public health, and community protections shows beyond all doubt that this Congress and the Trump administration will never negotiate in good faith on changes to these laws.
The previous administration proved that improving permitting is possible without throwing the baby out with the bath water. The Inflation Reduction Act and other policies have expedited permitting without sacrificing protections. The Biden administration reduced permit timelines by eight months government-wide, demonstrating that infrastructure permitting can be accelerated without compromising public interest safeguards critical to the West’s public lands, waters, wildlife, and communities.
“Our Congressional representatives must not help the Trump administration, Big Tech, and the fossil fuel industry steamroll our communities by making a bad deal on environmental rollbacks in the most extreme American Congress of our lifetimes,” Schlenker-Goodrich emphasized. “Keep in mind that Westerners are fierce defenders of the landscapes they call home.”
According to Colorado College’s 2026 Conservation in the West survey, more than four in five western voters in the Intermountain West say conservation is an important factor in choosing whether to support an elected official. The importance of conservation cuts across party lines—78% of Republicans, 86% of Independents, and 93% of Democrats identify it as an important issue. Salient to the permitting reform debate, “vast majorities” (70%) agreed that the rollback of environmental laws is a “serious problem” and a similar majority (>66%) worried these rollbacks would have a negative impact on the West. Additionally, 76% of westerners—including 74% of New Mexicans—prefer that their elected members of Congress protect “public lands over maximizing energy production,” with the percentage of Republicans holding this position rising from 48% in 2019 to 62% in 2026.
Quotes:
“Our national forests and other public lands are already threatened with arbitrary timber targets and rollbacks of longstanding safeguards,” said John Persell, senior staff attorney at Oregon Wild. “Full exploitation is this administration’s stated goal. We must strengthen our bedrock environmental laws in the face of these attacks, not weaken them.”
“New Mexico’s exceptional natural and cultural landscapes, including Chaco, the Upper Pecos Watershed, and our roadless forests, are under increasing threat,” said Sally Paez, staff attorney at New Mexico Wild. “We urge Congress to reject any ‘permitting reform’ that would remove the few legal guardrails that safeguard New Mexico’s wilderness, wildlife, and waters for current and future generations.”
“We believe the Willamette River’s clean waters and healthy habitat safe for fishing and recreation are basic public rights,” said Michelle Emmons and Heather King, co-executive directors of Willamette Riverkeeper. “Rolling back fundamental environmental laws would degrade our river and infringe on those rights.”
“In Montana, NEPA and other bedrock laws keep our residents safer than they otherwise would be from mining and other extractive industries,” said Caryn Miske, director of the Sierra Club Montana Chapter. “Our rivers, our air, our forests, wildlife, and health all depend on the safeguards in these laws, and they should be strengthened if anything—not gutted to facilitate even more exploitation.”
“This attack on public engagement in major project decisions is also an attack on Indigenous voices across New Mexico, across the West, and throughout the United States,” said Ahtza Chavez, CEO of Naeva. “Far too often, project proposals disregard impacts to sacred sites and cultural resources, and the public process is the only way to ensure the safety of Indigenous history and communities. Silencing needed conversations is not ‘reform’—it is oppression.”
“Weakening environmental and cultural protections in the name of progress disrespects the people and lands that actually make this country great,” said Carlos Matutes at GreenLatinos of New Mexico.
“If these federal permitting reforms happen, we stand to lose bedrock protections like the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Historical Preservation Act l, which have given generations the peace of mind that there will be clean water to drink and wonders of nature for our children to marvel at,” said Jacob Vigil, chief legislative officer of New Mexico Voices for Children. “We strongly support community and environmental safeguards that center children’s right to clean water and a thriving natural world.”
“As the short-sighted interests of fossil-fuel based extraction and energy continue to dominate the hearts of so many in power, people of faith and conscience are calling for courage and true service of the common good,” said Rev. Clara Sims, assistant executive director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light. “This is a critical time for our leaders to hold the line against permitting reform and all policies that seek to pillage this sacred earth and rob the future of life that is abundant and flourishing in New Mexico and everywhere.”
“We’ve seen this playbook before: ‘rapid clean energy deployment’ is once again being used to justify sweeping permitting rollbacks, even as environmental justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and community health are pushed to the margins,” said Mar Zepeda, legislative director of the Climate Justice Alliance. “If Congress advances a deregulatory framework, what guarantees that this administration will uphold the rule of law when protections, oversight, and community input are weakened? Speed without accountability is not progress, it’s a pathway to harm. If we are serious about a just and sustainable future, ecological integrity and community governance must be non-negotiable, not collateral damage.”
“Our public lands in the North Cascades are crown jewels of our remaining wilderness and must be protected from industrial exploitation,” said Phillip Fenner, president of the North Cascades Conservation Council.
“We need to strengthen environmental protection and find ways to deal with the warming climate,” said John R. Bridge, president of Olympic Park Advocates.
“We oppose this action knowing full well that it will cause great harm to all of us and the most important priority, the very source of our existence, living, biologically diverse, properly functioning ecosystems,” said Cindy Haws, president of the Umpqua Natural Leadership Science Hub.
“In many cases, the only thing standing between our region’s irreplaceable mature and old-growth forests and the chainsaw are these environmental laws,” said Janice Reid, president of Umpqua Watersheds. “Older forests are too special to log, and we are concerned that rollbacks at this time will destroy our natural heritage.”
“Sacrificing environmental health and auctioning-off public lands must stop,” said Garry Brown, president and CEO of Orange County Coastkeeper. “This administration is causing irreparable harm to America.”
“As the administration upends our longstanding procedures for public participation, we cannot let Congress take away our rights to meaningfully engage with agencies too,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network. “This is not reform in any legitimate sense. This is a rapid erosion of our norms and standards for stopping arbitrary and capricious decision making.”
“The Shasta River is our area’s lifeblood, for irrigation, recreation, and so much more,” said Dave Webb, board member of Friends of the Shasta River. “Water quality and quantity in our basin is fragile, and requires at least the level of protection current environmental laws provide. Rolling back these protections would jeopardize our way of life.”
“Mount Shasta is a natural sanctuary and sacred landscape to Indigenous people,” said Nick Joslin, policy and advocacy director at the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center. “Permit reform right now, with this Congress, would allow shortsighted resource extraction with extremely limited oversight that is incompatible with a thriving Mount Shasta and all it supports.”
“NEPA isn’t the cause of permitting challenges—bad ideas are,” said Christine Canaly, director of the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council. “Good projects move forward, inappropriate ones are slowed down, restructured, or stopped; that’s how decisions are supposed to work when managing America’s public lands.”
“Too many of Oregon’s bird populations are already in decline or at risk of extinction. We cannot afford yet another effort to weaken land management regulations that maximizes extraction,” said Joe Liebezeit, statewide conservation director at the Bird Alliance of Oregon. “Reducing wildlands protections throughout the West would have devastating impacts to migratory bird populations and to the habitats they depend on.”
“The Trump administration’s attacks on environmental reviews are already cutting the public out of public lands,” said Erik Molvar of Western Watersheds Project. “We don’t need permitting reform to enable more backroom deals with industry. What we need is NEPA restoration legislation to codify the regulations that have guided environmental reviews for decades, and which underpin the legal precedents that have always guided decisionmaking.”
“Environmental laws exist because pollution harms people. Rolling them back under the banner of permitting reform would undermine protections that New Mexico families rely on for clean air, safe water, and healthy communities,” said Ashley Proud, executive director of Healthy Climate New Mexico.
“Our community, which surrounds a federal nuclear weapons research and design laboratory, has depended on the National Environmental Policy Act’s public participation requirements to provide the only opportunity for those who are directly affected to speak directly to federal agency decision makers planning new programs and infrastructure for dangerous nuclear weapons activities,” said Scott Yundt, executive director of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs). “It is also the only opportunity for state regulators, local government officials, tribes, and community organizations to have input. This permitting reform push is sweeping up opportunities for public comment that are essential in a well-functioning democracy.”
“Keep the environmental safeguards in place on our public lands that help to protect our water, wildlife, and the varied communities around the West,” said Thomas Hollender, board member of the White Mountain Conservation League.
“Mining companies have staked claims to nearly 20,000 acres in the Gila National Forest over the last year,” said Allyson Siwik, executive director of the Gila Resources Information Project. “We believe regulatory rollbacks are at least part of the incentive for the huge increase in exploration-related activities in southwest New Mexico.”
“Deregulatory permitting reform right now only means the fossil fuel industry will be forever dominant in this nation, which is why they are the biggest cheerleader for making a deal now,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center For Biological Diversity. “Democrats must focus on fighting the lawless Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry, not cut deals with people that only seek to destroy clean energy and a livable future.”
“As a frontline family ranch impacted daily by the oil & gas industry—our health, our land, our air and water—we urge Sen. Heinrich and all members of Congress to defend families like ours, and frontline communities everywhere from any rollback of the already lax and permissive oil and gas regulations that affect our lives so deeply every day,” said Don Schreiber, owner of Devil’s Spring Ranch.
“On behalf of the children, the thousands of past and present Global Warming Expressers of the past 15 years in New Mexico, who continue to inform the grownups of the necessity for gratitude for, connection to and protection of all beings, sentient and non sentient, in this beautiful and fragile world, we strongly request that the members of Congress go for a long walk in an abundance of nature, and not return until such time that they realize the irreparable harm this choice for permitting reform will inflict upon all species, including all humans, including themselves and their own children and grandchildren, now, and for decades and decades to come,” said Genie Stevens, executive director of Global Warming Express.
“We’re seeing in real time how fossil fuel dependence fuels conflict, economic shocks, and global instability. Instead of learning from that, permitting reform would lock us further into the same system that’s driving these crises,” said Rebecca Sobel, climate and health director at WildEarth Guardians.
“Regulatory reform should be strengthening our laws that protect clean water, fish, wildlife and people, not weakening them,” said Arlene Montgomery, program director of Friends of the Wild Swan.
“America will celebrate our 250th anniversary July 4th, 2026, and North Dakota is opening the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library,” said Shannon Straight, executive director of the Badlands Conservation Alliance. “Ironically, Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy is being unraveled by former North Dakota Governor and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and the Trump administration. The administration views our public lands, landscape, and waters as ‘assets’ to be sold to the wealthy. Once gone, public lands will never return to the people. Theodore Roosevelt supported responsible resource development alongside conservation. It’s incumbent on all of us to stand up for not only America’s best idea, the National Park System, but for the generations to come that deserve fresh water, clean air and public lands to enjoy as we all have for the past generations.”
“The sheer size of many of the projects these changes would seek to force through would irreparably harm Montana’s wildlife and their needed migration corridors,” said Clinton Nagel, president of the Gallatin Wildlife Association. “Greater Yellowstone needs healthy wildlife to thrive, and these changes would severely impair both.”
“Southeastern Alaska’s economy depends on healthy salmon, and healthy salmon require strong environmental protections,” said Maggie Rabb, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. “Salmon are a sensitive species, as are so many other important fish and wildlife in our region. We oppose any changes to bedrock environmental laws that if anything should be strengthened.”
“Wyoming’s wildlands are rugged and beautiful, but also fragile,” said Aaron Bannon, executive director of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. “With so many areas in our state still in need of added protections, rolling back such a fundamental law as the National Environmental Policy Act would be a move in the wrong direction.”
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