Letter to Members of Congress - DeGette, Rooney Call on Congress to Oppose Trump's Proposed Revisions to Key Environmental Protection Rule

Letter

Dear Colleague,

We invite you to join us in expressing our strong opposition to the Trump Administration's plans, announced today, to revise the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in a way that, among other things, ignores the full extent of the climate crisis.

NEPA, signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on January 1, 1970 after passing Congress on an overwhelmingly-bipartisan basis, is often referred to as the Magna Carta of Environmental Policy. Under NEPA, federal agencies are required to make science-based assessments of the environmental effects of proposed major federal actions. Also, critically, NEPA is one of the only statutes that empowers the public to challenge proposed federal actions when made on the basis of inaccurate information or in a way that skirts the government's legal obligations. Since its enactment half a century ago, NEPA has been the foundational mechanism by which the United States has addressed the often-unintended impacts federal decisions can have on complex environmental systems.

Earlier today, the Trump Administration proposed a broad weakening of the regulations promulgated under NEPA. One of the most critical aspects of the proposed revisions is the removal of the requirement that agencies analyze cumulative impacts under NEPA, which would have the effect of removing any analysis of climate impacts. In particular, under the proposal, the NEPA regulations would be revised to state that "Effects should not be considered significant if they are remote in time, geographically remote, or the product of a lengthy causal chain." The very nature of the climate crisis, of course, is that climate change impacts -- such as sea level rise -- can be quite remote in time and geography from the human causes of climate change, including the combustion of natural gas, oil and coal, and the clear-cutting of forests. Climate change, as complex as it is, is exactly the kind of environmental problem NEPA was intended to address.

With billions of dollars in damage already being inflicted on our homes, businesses and infrastructure from storms, floods, and wildfires exacerbated by human-caused climate change; with health impacts already being experienced from increased heat waves, pollution and disease vectors; and with threats to our national security already being amplified by climate impacts in other countries, turning a blind eye towards climate change is exactly the wrong direction for federal policy to take.

If you have any questions or would like to join us in objecting to these revisions by signing onto the following letter, please have your staff contact XXX in Rep. DeGette's office or XXX in Rep. Rooney's office. The deadline for signatures is Friday, January 17, 2020 at 12 noon.

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