Today, the Trump administration finalized its proposal to gut more than 40 years of settled environmental law. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released the final text of a sweeping rule which will eviscerate core components of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a crucial safeguard for communities’ clean air, clean water, and health, as well as imperiled species and wild lands. Environmental justice and conservation advocates announced their intention to respond to the rollback with legal action.
CEQ’s proposal is the culmination of a relentless, multiyear assault on NEPA’s protections for workers, local communities, and the natural environment. It would open the door for the government to exempt pipelines, large-scale logging operations, waste incinerators, smog-spewing highways, and countless other federal actions from environmental review or sharply limit local communities’ ability to participate in the environmental decision-making process.
“We have consistently defeated this administration’s relentless, vicious dismantling of safeguards for people and the environment, and we will do so again with this final rule,” said Susan Jane Brown at the Western Environmental Law Center. “A thriving economy is not at odds with worker protections and a healthy environment – it depends on both.”
“When is this administration going to learn that the economy is the people,” said Kristen Boyles, staff attorney at Earthjustice. “Gutting NEPA silences voices and puts vulnerable communities, health, and our environment—including our air and water—at risk. We’re not going to sit back and allow a decision that could harm public health during a public health crisis go unscathed. We’ll be seeing them in court.”
The administration’s disregard for NEPA flies in the face of decades of bipartisan consensus on the law. Passed almost unanimously by Congress and signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, it was the product of years of determined activism from people who wanted a greater say in decisions affecting their homes, health, and environment.
Contacts:
Susan Jane Brown, Western Environmental Law Center, 503-914-1323, gro.w1734552586alnre1734552586tsew@1734552586nworb1734552586
Liz Trotter, Earthjustice, 305-332-5395, gro.e1734552586citsu1734552586jhtra1734552586e@ret1734552586torte1734552586
Additional Resources:
Trump Wants to Undo the People’s Environmental Law (Earthjustice)
How ‘Freeway Revolts’ Helped Create the People’s Environmental Law (Earthjustice)
State-by-State NEPA Success Stories (Protect NEPA Coalition)
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