{"id":10325,"date":"2020-07-29T19:49:02","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T00:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/foes-to-sue-feds-for-undermining-environmental-protections\/"},"modified":"2020-07-29T19:49:02","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T00:49:02","slug":"foes-to-sue-feds-for-undermining-environmental-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/foes-to-sue-feds-for-undermining-environmental-protections\/","title":{"rendered":"Foes to sue feds for undermining environmental protections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ATLANTA, GA. \u2013 Grassroots organizations vowed to take the federal government to court over U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s July 15 announcement here of rules changes shattering the bedrock environmental law that tribes and constituents have used to fend off fracking, oil pipelines and mining in treaty territory.
\nHailing the finalization of comprehensive changes to rules under the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, Trump said, \u201cToday\u2019s action is part of my Administration\u2019s fierce commitment to slashing the web of needless bureaucracy that is holding back our citizens. I\u2019ve been wanting to do this from day one.\u201d
\nDamning the reforms\u2019 implications for native nations, Lisa DeVille, vice-chair of Indian reservation-based grassroots Ft. Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights (POWER), from Mandaree, North Dakota, replied:
\n\u201cBlack, indigenous, and people of color\u2019s communities bear the disproportionate burden of toxic pollution in their neighborhoods, and as a result, are dying from Covid-19 at higher rates,\u201d she said.
\nAn enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa & Arikara (MHA) Nation, aka the Three Confederated Tribes, she represented native sentiment in a joint statement issued by foes of the rules changes from across the United States
\n\u201cMy family and I live on my ancestral land in the center of the Bakken oil field, and the last thing my family needs right now is even less protection from the dangerous impacts of this development,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cNEPA is one of the few laws that require environmental analysis on the reservation and consideration of the disproportionate impacts of development on indigenous people,\u201d she noted.
\n\u201cWe all deserve to breathe clean air, but the Trump Administration is proposing to eliminate protections against environmental racism that occurs from oil and gas development near my home.\u201d
\nAt a time when people across the country \u201care focused on a global health crisis, the injustices of Covid-19, and systemic racism that disproportionately harms Black and brown communities, this action is putting Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), and multiracial communities at greater risk,\u201d Greenlatinos national network declared.
\nConcurring with Ft. Berthold Power and Greenlatinos were grassroots constituents of the umbrella network Western Organization of Resource Councils. Barbara Vasquez, Oil and Gas Team chair complained, \u201cThe Administration\u2019s priorities are crystal clear\u2013rubber stamp polluting projects and pump toxins into the air and water while a crisis rages unchecked. We need the protection of thorough environmental and public health review now more than ever,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cWe will sue,\u201d said Brian Sweeney, communications director for the Western Environmental Law Center.
\n\u201cWe have consistently defeated this Administration\u2019s relentless, vicious dismantling of safeguards for people and the environment, and we will do so again with this final rule,\u201d said the center\u2019s Susan Jane Brown. \u201cA thriving economy is not at odds with worker protections and a healthy environment \u2013 it depends on both.\u201d
\nThe White House cast the reform as \u201cmodernization\u201d, saying, \u201cFor the first time in 40 years, President Donald J. Trump is taking action to right-size the federal government\u2019s environmental review process.\u201d
\nThe industry-backed move constitutes a remake of the regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act, sometimes called the \u201cmagna carta\u201d of environmental protections. Congress passed the act nearly unanimously, and former U.S. President Richard Nixon signed it into law on Jan. 1, 1970.
\nThe Trump version is a product of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the president\u2019s inner circle of advisors on NEPA.
\n\u201cBy streamlining infrastructure approvals, we\u2019ll further expand America\u2019s unprecedented economic boom,\u201d Trump said.
\nMajor companies and executives, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil, which contributed more than $1.4 million to Trump\u2019s campaigns and inauguration have heavily lobbied his administration on NEPA reform. Many have projects pending review under the law that would be accelerated through the new changes, according to the non-partisan watchdog group Accountable U.S.
\nThe reform reduces public participation by establishing time limits of two years for completing environmental impact statements and one year for environmental assessments. The new language rolls back requirements for considering cumulative and climate effects of projects that need federal permit approval. It also shrinks the pool of projects subject to public review.
\nThe new rules appear \u201cto be an attempt to narrow the scope of NEPA analysis and potentially eliminates the need to assess climate change in NEPA reviews,\u201d said environmental law specialist Thaddeus Lightfoot, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney, who analyzed the CEQ\u2019s final changes.
\nThe changes include holding impact statements\u2019 size down to 300 pages and minimizing the allowable scope of lawsuits over them. The new rules also explicitly allow a project applicant to prepare its own environmental impact statement, and they remove the prohibition on hiring contractors that have conflicts of interest, such as financial ties to the applicant.
\n\u201cTogether, these commonsense reforms will slash unnecessary government bureaucracy and accelerate important infrastructure projects all across the nation,\u201d a White House Fact Sheet said.
\nThe Fact Sheet takes cues from a 2015 report by the non-partisan non-profit Common Good, founded and chaired by Philip K. Howard, a self-declared \u201cradical centrist\u201d, lawyer and author of Try Common Sense.
\n\u201cThe regulations restore the original goal of NEPA as an informational tool for policy choices, not an action-forcing mechanism allowing judges to overrule executive choices that comply with underlying statutes,\u201d Common Good said.
\nThe national non-profit Center for Biological Diversity argued however, \u201cData collected by federal agencies show that NEPA works well and as intended, despite unproven rhetoric by right-wing industry groups regarding project delays.\u201d
\nThe NEPA process \u201chas been vital in raising concerns about environmentally destructive projects, including the Keystone XL Pipeline,\u201d it said.
\n\u201cNEPA\u2019s dismantling is a win for corruption, a win for polluters, and a win for those that profit off the destruction of our planet,\u201d said the center\u2019s Government Affairs Director Brett Hartl. \u201cEveryone else loses.\u201d
\nAccording to Accountable U.S. its research led Bloomberg news media to reveal that \u201ca top official in Trump\u2019s Council on Environmental Quality who has been a key player in the effort to overhaul NEPA, is married to an industry lobbyist who lobbied CEQ on NEPA.\u201d
\nThe Oglala Sioux Tribe has been using NEPA\u2019s environmental impact statement process for more than a decade to challenge Canadian corporations\u2019 plans to expand uranium mining in the underground water tables at Crow Butte in Nebraska and at Dewey-Burdock in the Black Hills, upstream from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in unceded 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory.<\/p>\n

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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ATLANTA, GA. \u2013 Grassroots organizations vowed to take the federal government to court over U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s July 15 announcement here of rules changes shattering the bedrock environmental law that tribes and constituents have used to fend off fracking, oil pipelines and mining in treaty territory. Hailing the finalization <\/p>\n

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