Trump Delivers Major Blow to the Foundation of U.S. Environmental Law
A new interpretation of the National Environmental Policy Act limits its power and scope, ignores climate change, and cuts marginalized communities out of decisions, critics say.
By Andy McGlashenAssociate Editor, Audubon Magazine
July 15, 2020
Birds in This Story
Greater Sage-Grouse
Centrocercus urophasianus
sounds at lek
A truck hauls pipeline to a construction site. Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Zuma Press/Alamy
When a federal judge ruled last week that the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline must be shut down, it was because the Trump administration had not rigorously studied the project’s impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. In May, a different federal judge voided 145,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana over a similar failure to provide the environmental analysis NEPA requires. One reason that yet another judge last October halted plans to loosen protections for the declining Greater Sage-Grouse? NEPA.
The 50-year-old law is so fundamental and far-reaching that it’s sometimes called the Magna Carta of environmental policy. NEPA says that before federal agencies can issue a permit for logging or drilling, build a highway, adopt a land-management plan, or make other major decisions, the agency must assess how doing so will affect human health, wildlife, air and water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and more. It also requires that the public get a chance to comment on such decisions, making it an especially important tool for marginalized communities to stop some projects and make others less harmful.
NEPA has been a persistent thorn in the administration’s side as it has sought to advance drilling, mining, and major construction activity. But it will be a lot less irksome to that agenda—and, environmental advocates say, much less protective of public health—under a major reinterpretation of the law that President Trump announced today.
“Today's action is part of my administration's fierce commitment to slashing the web of needless bureaucracy that is holding back our citizens,” Trump said during remarks in Atlanta. “This, I would think, is maybe the biggest of all.”
Designed to speed up big projects, the new rule from the White House Council on Environmental Quality restricts environmental reviews to two years and 150 pages—limits that critics call arbitrary and inadequate for major actions. It also enables agencies to skip environmental reviews for actions that have “minimal Federal funding or minimal Federal involvement,” though opponents say such projects can still have major environmental consequences. And, in a change that’s drawn significant criticism, it allows agencies to ignore a proposed action’s effects on climate change by excluding “cumulative” impacts and those that “are remote in time, geographically remote, or the product of a lengthy causal chain,” though it never mentions climate.
“We have lost approximately 3 billion North American birds since 1970 and climate change threatens extinction for two-thirds of bird species,” said Nada Culver, vice president of public lands and senior policy counsel for the National Audubon Society, in a statement. “Inscribing the administration’s willful ignorance of the need to address climate change into regulations is irresponsible and dangerous.”
Conservation advocates say the new rule is a giveaway to industries that have lobbied for less regulation, and one of the most harmful rollbacks from an administration that’s taken steps to weaken around 100 environmental policies.
Conservation advocates say the new rule is a giveaway to industries that have lobbied for less regulation.
“What the Trump administration wants to do is have no speed humps, no guardrails, nothing whatsoever with any development projects. The goal is simple: Get it done and make as much money as you can,” says David Jenkins, president of the nonprofit Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. “All the changes they’re trying to make, I think they’re just completely contrary to the intent of Congress when they passed NEPA, or Nixon when he signed it into law.”
The changes will be most harmful to Black Americans, low-income families, and others who are exposed to more pollution and are more likely to die from it, environmental justice advocates say. “NEPA is one of the best ways that communities of color can actually get into court where there is a project that has a disproportionate adverse impact” on them, says Chandra Taylor, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Dropping the required review of cumulative impacts is one of Taylor's biggest concerns with the new rule. “If there’s not a requirement that cumulative impacts have to be analyzed, it eliminates the big picture of the environmental burden that a community is already facing,” she says. “That area may already be burdened by a landfill and a smokestack, and then there’s a new road proposed.”
She also warns that the rule limits public input by requiring that public comments be specific and should “include or describe the data sources and methodologies” to support any request for changes to a proposed project. “That is going to be a real burden for communities that don’t have a lot of money and aren’t already tied in to technical expertise,” she says. “It discounts the on-the-ground experience of environmental justice communities.”
Industry groups, meanwhile, praised the new rule as a needed reduction in red tape. “Today’s action is essential to U.S. energy leadership and environmental progress, providing more certainty to jumpstart not only the modernized pipeline infrastructure we need to deliver cleaner fuels but highways, bridges and renewable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers in a statement. Environmental impact statements now average 650 pages and take four and a half years to complete, the White House says.
But opponents of the rollback say it’s a false premise that the law’s environmental review requirements are holding back needed infrastructure. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2012 found that delays in federal highway projects were rarely caused by NEPA and were more often due to funding issues, local opposition, and other factors.
“Despite NEPA, we haven’t exactly seen a stop of development, a stop of infrastructure projects,” says Jenkins, from the conservative conservation group. “You go anywhere in this country and you see constant building, constant road-widening, constant new housing developments. The NEPA process has never stopped this kind of development.”
The rule is set to take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which should happen Thursday. Depending on how November’s election goes, however, Democratic lawmakers could kill the rule early next year, using their authority under the Congressional Review Act. More immediately, it will undoubtedly face legal challenges.
“We’re not going to sit back and allow a decision that could harm public health during a public health crisis go unscathed,” said Earthjustice staff attorney Kristen Boyles in a press release. “We’ll be seeing them in court.”
With the Nation in Turmoil, Trump Orders Agencies to Waive Environmental Rules
Hours before trumpeting an economic rebound, the president cited an economic emergency to justify a sweeping rollback of bedrock laws.
By Andy McGlashenAssociate Editor, Audubon Magazine
June 05, 2020
Birds in This Story
Golden Eagle
Aquila chrysaetos
calls of captive
Whooping Crane
Grus americana
bugles
Greater Sage-Grouse
When a federal judge ruled last week that the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline must be shut down, it was because the Trump administration had not rigorously studied the project’s impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. In May, a different federal judge voided 145,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana over a similar failure to provide the environmental analysis NEPA requires. One reason that yet another judge last October halted plans to loosen protections for the declining Greater Sage-Grouse? NEPA.
The 50-year-old law is so fundamental and far-reaching that it’s sometimes called the Magna Carta of environmental policy. NEPA says that before federal agencies can issue a permit for logging or drilling, build a highway, adopt a land-management plan, or make other major decisions, the agency must assess how doing so will affect human health, wildlife, air and water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and more. It also requires that the public get a chance to comment on such decisions, making it an especially important tool for marginalized communities to stop some projects and make others less harmful.
NEPA has been a persistent thorn in the administration’s side as it has sought to advance drilling, mining, and major construction activity. But it will be a lot less irksome to that agenda—and, environmental advocates say, much less protective of public health—under a major reinterpretation of the law that President Trump announced today.
“Today's action is part of my administration's fierce commitment to slashing the web of needless bureaucracy that is holding back our citizens,” Trump said during remarks in Atlanta. “This, I would think, is maybe the biggest of all.”
Designed to speed up big projects, the new rule from the White House Council on Environmental Quality restricts environmental reviews to two years and 150 pages—limits that critics call arbitrary and inadequate for major actions. It also enables agencies to skip environmental reviews for actions that have “minimal Federal funding or minimal Federal involvement,” though opponents say such projects can still have major environmental consequences. And, in a change that’s drawn significant criticism, it allows agencies to ignore a proposed action’s effects on climate change by excluding “cumulative” impacts and those that “are remote in time, geographically remote, or the product of a lengthy causal chain,” though it never mentions climate.
“We have lost approximately 3 billion North American birds since 1970 and climate change threatens extinction for two-thirds of bird species,” said Nada Culver, vice president of public lands and senior policy counsel for the National Audubon Society, in a statement. “Inscribing the administration’s willful ignorance of the need to address climate change into regulations is irresponsible and dangerous.”
Conservation advocates say the new rule is a giveaway to industries that have lobbied for less regulation, and one of the most harmful rollbacks from an administration that’s taken steps to weaken around 100 environmental policies.
Conservation advocates say the new rule is a giveaway to industries that have lobbied for less regulation.
“What the Trump administration wants to do is have no speed humps, no guardrails, nothing whatsoever with any development projects. The goal is simple: Get it done and make as much money as you can,” says David Jenkins, president of the nonprofit Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. “All the changes they’re trying to make, I think they’re just completely contrary to the intent of Congress when they passed NEPA, or Nixon when he signed it into law.”
The changes will be most harmful to Black Americans, low-income families, and others who are exposed to more pollution and are more likely to die from it, environmental justice advocates say. “NEPA is one of the best ways that communities of color can actually get into court where there is a project that has a disproportionate adverse impact” on them, says Chandra Taylor, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Dropping the required review of cumulative impacts is one of Taylor's biggest concerns with the new rule. “If there’s not a requirement that cumulative impacts have to be analyzed, it eliminates the big picture of the environmental burden that a community is already facing,” she says. “That area may already be burdened by a landfill and a smokestack, and then there’s a new road proposed.”
She also warns that the rule limits public input by requiring that public comments be specific and should “include or describe the data sources and methodologies” to support any request for changes to a proposed project. “That is going to be a real burden for communities that don’t have a lot of money and aren’t already tied in to technical expertise,” she says. “It discounts the on-the-ground experience of environmental justice communities.”
Industry groups, meanwhile, praised the new rule as a needed reduction in red tape. “Today’s action is essential to U.S. energy leadership and environmental progress, providing more certainty to jumpstart not only the modernized pipeline infrastructure we need to deliver cleaner fuels but highways, bridges and renewable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers in a statement. Environmental impact statements now average 650 pages and take four and a half years to complete, the White House says.
But opponents of the rollback say it’s a false premise that the law’s environmental review requirements are holding back needed infrastructure. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2012 found that delays in federal highway projects were rarely caused by NEPA and were more often due to funding issues, local opposition, and other factors.
“Despite NEPA, we haven’t exactly seen a stop of development, a stop of infrastructure projects,” says Jenkins, from the conservative conservation group. “You go anywhere in this country and you see constant building, constant road-widening, constant new housing developments. The NEPA process has never stopped this kind of development.”
The rule is set to take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which should happen Thursday. Depending on how November’s election goes, however, Democratic lawmakers could kill the rule early next year, using their authority under the Congressional Review Act. More immediately, it will undoubtedly face legal challenges.
“We’re not going to sit back and allow a decision that could harm public health during a public health crisis go unscathed,” said Earthjustice staff attorney Kristen Boyles in a press release. “We’ll be seeing them in court.”
With the Nation in Turmoil, Trump Orders Agencies to Waive Environmental Rules
Hours before trumpeting an economic rebound, the president cited an economic emergency to justify a sweeping rollback of bedrock laws.
By Andy McGlashenAssociate Editor, Audubon Magazine
June 05, 2020
Birds in This Story
Golden Eagle
Aquila chrysaetos
calls of captive
Whooping Crane
Grus americana
bugles
Greater Sage-Grouse
Oil pipeline being constructed. Photo: Dusan Kostic/Alamy
When the latest employment data arrived on Friday with unexpected good news, President Donald Trump hailed May’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate, down from 14.7 percent in April, as a sign that his leadership had spurred a comeback. “Really Big Jobs Report,” Trump tweeted. “Great going President Trump (kidding but true)!”
Later, at a press conference to tout the new jobs numbers—which showed a slight uptick in Black unemployment despite the overall gains—Trump said it was “a great day” for George Floyd, who was killed May 25 in police custody in Minneapolis. “Hopefully George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that's happening for our country.”
Aside from its glaring insensitivity, the president’s sunny economic message was at odds with a sweeping rollback of environmental protections he issued just a day earlier. On Thursday, citing a national economic emergency, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to waive permitting requirements for infrastructure projects by tapping into emergency provisions within the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It calls on agency leaders to “use all relevant emergency and other authorities to expedite work on, and completion of, all authorized and appropriated highway and other infrastructure projects” under their purview. It also directs them to deliver, within 30 days, a list of projects they will fast-track.
The order is consistent with Trump’s years-long campaign “focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays,” the order says. “Unnecessary regulatory delays will deny our citizens opportunities for jobs and economic security, keeping millions of Americans out of work and hindering our economic recovery from the national emergency.”
But environmental groups lambasted the move as a handout to polluting industries and a slap in the face to Black people who experience disproportionate health impacts from pollution and, as a result, from COVID-19. “This is what they do, you know? Cutting the red tape for business at the expense of health, quality of life, and safety of communities,” says Kerene Tayloe, director of federal legislative affairs for WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “In one breath, he’s saying this executive order is to help us bounce back, but he’s setting up these communities that are already burdened to be further harmed.”
Mustafa Santiago Ali, a vice president with the National Wildlife Federation and a former EPA environmental justice official, shared a similar reaction with The Verge. “When we say we can’t breathe, we are not only talking about the knees on our necks and chokeholds from police, but also the squeezing of life from our lungs brought on by the pollution that the Trump Administration continues to pump into our bodies by the rolling back of the vary laws that are meant to give us justice and access,” he said.
Other experts said that using an economic downturn to justify waiving environmental reviews and the public input that accompanies them is unprecedented. “These reviews are required by law to protect people from industries that can harm our health and our communities,” said Gina McCarthy, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement. “Getting rid of them will hit those who live closest to polluting facilities and highways the hardest—in many of the same communities already suffering the most from the national emergencies at hand.”
The order lacks specifics about which projects could be expedited, but it could include roads, pipelines, electric transmission lines, and mines—all of which impact birds and their habitat.
The order lacks specifics about which projects could be expedited, but it could include roads, pipelines, electric transmission lines, and mines—all of which impact birds and their habitat. Transmission lines, for example, commonly electrocute Golden Eagles and other raptors, says Nada Culver, vice president of public lands and senior policy counsel for the National Audubon Society. Endangered Whooping Cranes sometimes die in collisions with the lines, which also provide perches for predators of Greater Sage-Grouse, a species in worrisome decline.
If federal agencies are allowed to use emergency authorities as Trump has directed, those kinds of impacts, along with the damage that building the lines could do to wetlands and other habitat, would be ignored, Culver warns. “The idea for these authorities was to address emergencies, not to provide an excuse for pushing potentially harmful projects forward,” she says. “Considering the impact on communities and the environment, and giving people a voice in decisions that affect their health and safety are not unnecessary regulatory delays, they are critical steps in responsible decision-making.”
For months prior to Thursday’s order the Trump administration has been at work to significantly curtail NEPA, among the nation’s most fundamental environmental laws. NEPA requires agencies to take a hard, scientific look at the environmental impacts of planned projects before approving them. Backed by the fossil fuel, construction, and other industries, the administration has proposed limiting what kinds of impacts agencies have to consider and how long they can take to do so. While that proposal works through the federal rulemaking process, Tayloe says the executive order achieves its purpose on a faster timeline. “This articulates their goal even more clearly,” she says.
Still, like other Trump administration rollbacks, experts say the executive order could be vulnerable to legal challenges as a result of its interpretation of what constitutes an emergency under NEPA and other laws. And environmental groups appeared ready to exploit that vulnerability. “We will not let this stand,” McCarthy said.
When the latest employment data arrived on Friday with unexpected good news, President Donald Trump hailed May’s 13.3 percent unemployment rate, down from 14.7 percent in April, as a sign that his leadership had spurred a comeback. “Really Big Jobs Report,” Trump tweeted. “Great going President Trump (kidding but true)!”
Later, at a press conference to tout the new jobs numbers—which showed a slight uptick in Black unemployment despite the overall gains—Trump said it was “a great day” for George Floyd, who was killed May 25 in police custody in Minneapolis. “Hopefully George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that's happening for our country.”
Aside from its glaring insensitivity, the president’s sunny economic message was at odds with a sweeping rollback of environmental protections he issued just a day earlier. On Thursday, citing a national economic emergency, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to waive permitting requirements for infrastructure projects by tapping into emergency provisions within the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It calls on agency leaders to “use all relevant emergency and other authorities to expedite work on, and completion of, all authorized and appropriated highway and other infrastructure projects” under their purview. It also directs them to deliver, within 30 days, a list of projects they will fast-track.
The order is consistent with Trump’s years-long campaign “focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays,” the order says. “Unnecessary regulatory delays will deny our citizens opportunities for jobs and economic security, keeping millions of Americans out of work and hindering our economic recovery from the national emergency.”
But environmental groups lambasted the move as a handout to polluting industries and a slap in the face to Black people who experience disproportionate health impacts from pollution and, as a result, from COVID-19. “This is what they do, you know? Cutting the red tape for business at the expense of health, quality of life, and safety of communities,” says Kerene Tayloe, director of federal legislative affairs for WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “In one breath, he’s saying this executive order is to help us bounce back, but he’s setting up these communities that are already burdened to be further harmed.”
Mustafa Santiago Ali, a vice president with the National Wildlife Federation and a former EPA environmental justice official, shared a similar reaction with The Verge. “When we say we can’t breathe, we are not only talking about the knees on our necks and chokeholds from police, but also the squeezing of life from our lungs brought on by the pollution that the Trump Administration continues to pump into our bodies by the rolling back of the vary laws that are meant to give us justice and access,” he said.
Other experts said that using an economic downturn to justify waiving environmental reviews and the public input that accompanies them is unprecedented. “These reviews are required by law to protect people from industries that can harm our health and our communities,” said Gina McCarthy, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement. “Getting rid of them will hit those who live closest to polluting facilities and highways the hardest—in many of the same communities already suffering the most from the national emergencies at hand.”
The order lacks specifics about which projects could be expedited, but it could include roads, pipelines, electric transmission lines, and mines—all of which impact birds and their habitat.
The order lacks specifics about which projects could be expedited, but it could include roads, pipelines, electric transmission lines, and mines—all of which impact birds and their habitat. Transmission lines, for example, commonly electrocute Golden Eagles and other raptors, says Nada Culver, vice president of public lands and senior policy counsel for the National Audubon Society. Endangered Whooping Cranes sometimes die in collisions with the lines, which also provide perches for predators of Greater Sage-Grouse, a species in worrisome decline.
If federal agencies are allowed to use emergency authorities as Trump has directed, those kinds of impacts, along with the damage that building the lines could do to wetlands and other habitat, would be ignored, Culver warns. “The idea for these authorities was to address emergencies, not to provide an excuse for pushing potentially harmful projects forward,” she says. “Considering the impact on communities and the environment, and giving people a voice in decisions that affect their health and safety are not unnecessary regulatory delays, they are critical steps in responsible decision-making.”
For months prior to Thursday’s order the Trump administration has been at work to significantly curtail NEPA, among the nation’s most fundamental environmental laws. NEPA requires agencies to take a hard, scientific look at the environmental impacts of planned projects before approving them. Backed by the fossil fuel, construction, and other industries, the administration has proposed limiting what kinds of impacts agencies have to consider and how long they can take to do so. While that proposal works through the federal rulemaking process, Tayloe says the executive order achieves its purpose on a faster timeline. “This articulates their goal even more clearly,” she says.
Still, like other Trump administration rollbacks, experts say the executive order could be vulnerable to legal challenges as a result of its interpretation of what constitutes an emergency under NEPA and other laws. And environmental groups appeared ready to exploit that vulnerability. “We will not let this stand,” McCarthy said.
No comments:
Post a Comment