Trump admin writes itself a permission slip to ignore climate change and wreck the environment

The Trump White House’s Council on Environmental Quality is proposing changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that would not only make it easier to keep the public in the dark about government projects, but give federal agencies a permission slip to ignore how their own actions might contribute to climate change. 

 “At a time when the climate crisis is already delivering catastrophic effects in the U.S. and abroad, we can’t discard this law which requires that the consequences for our climate are factored into decision-making about mining, drilling, and other destructive projects.” - Brad Brooks, The Wilderness Society

“The changes proposed for NEPA would eviscerate requirements for transparency in government that have been in place for many decades,” said Brad Brooks, campaign director for The Wilderness Society, in a statement.

 “At a time when the climate crisis is already delivering catastrophic effects in the U.S. and abroad, we can’t discard this law which requires that the consequences for our climate are factored into decision-making about mining, drilling, and other destructive projects.”

In short, NEPA makes the government consider how a project will affect the environment and gives the people who will have to live with the consequences a fair chance to weigh in on it. For example, NEPA prevents a federal agency from launching a drilling project or building a new road through delicate wildlife habitat on a whim; the agency would first need to explain and justify its plan, including offering it up for public scrutiny and analyzing potential impacts.

The new Trump overhaul would put limits on public comment and environmental analysis, constricting the definitions and timelines for review of projects and allowing many projects to escape review altogether. It’s of a piece with numerous other policies pushed by the administration that would make it easier to pollute or degrade natural resources without oversight.

The new Trump overhaul would put limits on public comment and environmental analysis, constricting the definitions and timelines for review of projects and allowing many projects to escape review altogether. It’s of a piece with numerous other policies pushed by the administration that would make it easier to pollute or degrade natural resources without oversight.

Significantly, the new proposals would also let agencies remove climate change from consideration when performing those analyses.  The measures insist on a direct and highly linear connection between a project and its potential consequences, disregarding how projects contribute to so-called “cumulative” effects. 

Following the logic of the new proposals, it would be easy for a government office to say that since no single project directly “causes” the massive and multifaceted crisis that is climate change, they can disregard climate change when considering the consequences of any single project.

Such an outcome would be roughly akin to deciding that because no single cigarette can be linked definitively to lung cancer, it’s unfair to implicate smoking in the Surgeon General’s Warning.

We stand ready to challenge this outrageous and undemocratic proposal if and when it’s finalized. In the meantime, we will be letting you know about opportunities to weigh in and tell lawmakers they need to preserve our most important environmental safeguard.