NEPA Is Under Threat—Here’s Why That Matters

May 21, 2018

By Sam Schipani

Since the early days of his campaign for president, Donald Trump has been promising to make major investments in infrastructure. While the president has not been able to push his $1.5 trillion infrastructure package through Congress, during the past few months lawmakers have moved forward with small pieces of legislation aimed at improving infrastructure, including a water infrastructure bill that recently passed the Senate with bipartisan support. Legislation to improve infrastructure often enjoys support from both sides of the aisle, but environmental groups have been keeping a close eye on the Republican House to see whether these bills will sneak in any the president’s proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA.

NEPA is one of the United States’ bedrock environmental laws, and enjoyed broad bipartisan support when President Nixon signed it into law on Jan. 1, 1970. At its core, NEPA’s mandate is simple: the federal government is required to look before it leaps into big infrastructure projects by considering potential environmental impacts and keeping the public informed throughout the development process.

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The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a critical law that has helped local communities protect themselves and their environment from dangerous, rushed, and poorly planned federal projects for over 45 years.

We teach our children to “look before you leap.” The NEPA process simply and sensibly requires our government to do the same by identifying any significant impacts a project may have on our health, environment, and livelihood before construction begins.

NEPA and its implementing procedures provide a strong foundation for informed, science-based decision-making and already provide ample flexibility.

As such, I am strongly opposed to CEQ’s proposed rule as well as any other changes to NEPA’s implementing procedures that would in any way restrict public input, limit consideration of project alternatives, establish hard deadlines for project approval, or narrow or eliminate federal agencies’ obligations to consider a project’s climate impacts.

I urge CEQ to abandon this rulemaking process altogether.

By signing this petition, I acknowledge that I may receive email updates from Protect NEPA coalition partners.

The Protect NEPA campaign works with a coalition of over twenty of the country’s largest environmental, labor, and civil rights advocacy groups – including Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, and League of Conservation Voters – to advance and defend NEPA across a broad range of key issue areas.

NEPA Is Under Threat—Here’s Why That Matters

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