Defenders Decries Supreme Court Decision Dismantling National Environmental Policy Act

The Supreme Court today ruled that federal agencies may ignore foreseeable environmental impacts when approving projects, opening the door to additional pollution, degradation of federal lands, and catastrophic habitat loss. The decision is the latest blow in the continued dismantling of the National Environmental Policy Act which for 50 years has played a central role in ensuring agencies inform the public and consider their comments before making decisions affecting communities, imperiled species and federal lands.

“Our highest court has just thrown away decades of jurisprudence at a moment when the Trump administration is hellbent on burning our bedrock environmental laws to the ground. NEPA has protected imperiled species and habitats for the past 55 years and established a ‘look before you leap’ protocol," said Mike Senatore, senior vice president of conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife. “Our environmental laws, which are designed to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our communities, wildlife and the planet, are being dismantled to cater to businesses and billionaires’ bank accounts. Now is the exact moment to use our voices for the wild creatures and places that don’t have a voice in the halls of government.”

Today’s decision comes hard on the heels of the Trump administration’s efforts to eviscerate NEPA by rescinding implementing regulations that had ensured procedural uniformity across the federal government for more than forty years. Based on a categorically false “energy emergency” narrative, this administration is busy greenlighting fossil fuel and mining projects on federal lands while short-circuiting or evading outright analyses under environmental laws like NEPA, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act that protect our natural heritage and our communities from harm.

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