Urge your Rep to Oppose the SPEED ACT that guts NEPA

Urge your representatives to oppose the SPEED Act and other attempts to dismantle  our bedrock environmental protections today.

The Proposed "SPEED Act" currently in Congress prioritizes the interests of fossil fuel, mining, and other corporate polluters at the expense of our families and communities. 

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a bedrock environmental law that has long been an essential tool to ensure that taxpayer dollars and public infrastructure serves the public interest and ensures a healthy environment for present and future generations. 

Trump has already signed executive orders changing the way that agencies conduct their NEPA review, limiting our participation. 

Now legislation in Congress like the SPEED Act would gut further NEPA, limit reviews, weaken science, and eliminate government accountability when agencies fail to adequately consider the health, environmental, or economic impacts of their decisions. Instead of speeding clean energy development, this bill would create conflict and delay by prioritizing corporate profit over the public interest.

We can not sit back and be silent while billionaire corporations try to sacrifice the air we breathe, water we drink, and climate we rely on for even larger profits. 

Will you take action to protect our health, climate, and future? Urge your representatives to oppose the SPEED Act and other attempts to dismantle  our bedrock environmental protections today. You can use the Sierra Club's form or call your representative. Find the script below. 

1-202-601-3839

(You will need the name of your representative. Mine is Rep. Juan Ciscomani.)

And you can also write your Reps here: sc.org/Protect

Tell the Council for Environmental Quality : Safeguard NEPA environmental reviews

For nearly 50 years, the United States has benefited from an empowering legal tool that allows communities to protect themselves and their environment from dangerous, rushed and poorly planned federal projects. Now the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are working to weaken that law and silence local voices.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ensures that we all have a voice when polluter interests want to build a toxic waste incinerator in our neighborhood or a dangerous pipeline next to our children’s school. The plan to gut this vital tool—the nation’s oldest environmental law—is nothing short of a public gag order. NEPA also allows communities to offer local expertise to make good projects safer and more efficient.

The federal government funds and carries out projects in communities across the country. Many of these projects cater to wealthy corporations that seek to profit at the expense of the health and safety of their workers and the people living near the project sites. Many of these projects have an outsized impact on working-class communities and communities of color, who often face disenfranchisement in our political system.

The Trump administration’s decision to start the process of administratively rolling back NEPA environmental reviews is a thinly veiled attempt to rubberstamp permits for corporate polluters. Don’t let that happen—take action today.

- Earth Justice

Click on this link to send the following message to the Council of Environmental Quality.  

(Personalize it for more impact.) 

Dear Council on Environmental Quality,

I urge you to protect the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by keeping its implementing regulations strong. Changes to NEPA’s implementing regulations should focus on strengthening the application of the law and investing more in public involvement without undermining the current protections it offers. 

Before contemplating any changes, the CEQ must go through a robust process that relies on public input, requiring numerous public hearings across the country, and must detail its reasons for any proposed changes.

NEPA ensures that our communities have a say in major federal decisions that affect our health and safety. It is often the only way for people to voice their concerns about the consequences that federal projects will have for their communities, and to demonstrate how local expertise can improve them. Our communities are safer and healthier because of a strong NEPA.

NEPA ensures that federal agencies “look before they leap” as they fund and permit major projects that impact so many communities across the country. Weakening NEPA puts our communities at risk and makes government less efficient by undermining a process that often uncovers major problems in project design and builds consensus as these problems are addressed.

An attack on NEPA is an attack on our ability to keep our communities safe and healthy. You have the opportunity to protect us from hasty decision making that would put our communities at great risk. Make sure we have a voice—protect NEPA!

Tell the White House Council on Environmental Quality: Defend NEPA

The petition to Ted Boling, associate director for the National Environmental Policy Act, White House Council for Environmental Quality, reads: "Preserve the National Environmental Policy Act. Do not adopt any regulatory changes that restrict public participation, prevent agencies from objecting to plans or proposing alternatives, limit the role of the EPA to protect air quality, or otherwise weaken NEPA." Add your name:

Trump has been systematically eliminating environmental protections since he got to the White House. Now he's going after the “Magna Carta of environmental law."1 The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is the original law requiring the federal government to minimize its effects on the environment. It is extremely effective and it paved the way for many of the environmental policies we have today – so it's no wonder that Trump wants NEPA gone. Trump can't repeal laws on his own, but he has directed the White House Council on Environmental Policy to consider changes to NEPA regulations.2 We must let them know that any change that weakens NEPA is unacceptable – and we will resist loudly and often. Tell the White House Council on Environmental Quality: Preserve NEPA. Click here to sign the petition. Nearly 50 years ago, NEPA established the first national legal framework for protecting our environment. Under NEPA, federal agencies must consider the environmental impact of planned projects and take public input into consideration. By requiring agencies to consider less-destructive alternatives to initial project proposals, NEPA has saved billions of dollars and avoided countless environmental disasters.3 In the 1990s, Michigan's state transportation department wanted to build a four-lane highway across important wetlands. Using NEPA, concerned residents forced it to consider alternatives. The state ended up expanding an existing highway instead, saving 1.5 billion and protecting the wetlands.4 Trump wants to limit the agencies' ability to recommend less-harmful alternatives.5 He wants to limit the EPA's ability to object to projects because of the air pollution they would cause.6 He's setting the stage to get rid of NEPA all together – a dream of big polluters and the far-right Heritage Foundation.7 Tell the White House Council on Environmental Quality: Preserve NEPA. Click here to sign the petition. Republicans like to claim that NEPA makes government projects inefficient, but multiple expert studies show that NEPA is rarely the cause of project delays.8 In fact, more than 95 percent of projects subject to NEPA go through a short review process of a few days to months.9Less than one percent of NEPA projects ever end up requiring environmental impact statements.10 In reality, the Republican attack on NEPA is "part of a broad deregulatory agenda that prioritizes business interests over public benefits from environmental protection."11 They are more than happy to sell out nearly 50 years of environmental progress to make more money for their industry friends. To stop them, we make it too politically costly to destroy NEPA. We must stand up to defend our right to speak up about the decisions that affect our communities and environment. Tell the White House Council on Environmental Quality: Preserve NEPA. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/Defend_NEPA?t=8&akid=28760%2E3130208%2EKFir1_ -Brandy Doyle, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Janet McCabe and Cynthia Giles, "Trump proposal to weaken project reviews threatens the “Magna Carta of environmental law,” The Conversation, May 16, 2018. Nick Sobczyk, "Industry wants "more oomph" in planned NEPA overhaul," E&E News, May 21, 2018. Macabre and Giles, "Trump proposal to weaken project reviews threatens the “Magna Carta of environmental law." Ibid. Timothy Cama, "Trump aims to speed environmental reviews in infrastructure plan," The Hill, Feb. 12, 2018. Ibid. McCabe and Giles, “Trump proposal to weaken project reviews threatens the “Magna Carta of environmental law." Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

Tell Members of Congress: to reject Trump’s infrastructure scam.

During Tuesday night's State of the Union, Trump introduced his #InfrastructureScam - and just like his health care and tax plans it will be another massive giveaway to the rich and powerful that will force cities and states to fight against each other in a "Hunger Games"-esque bid for limited infrastructure funds.

Tell Members of Congress: to reject Trump’s infrastructure scam.

Trump’s plan leaves our communities open to exploitation by private companies. Under the plan, our existing public infrastructure - roads, bridges, hospitals, and even our air traffic control towers - will be sold off to Wall Street for pennies on the dollar, allowing them to install new tolls and fees that jack up prices that many individuals and families simply cannot afford. His plan will be funded by cutting critical social safety net programs used by many low income communities like Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, and Federal Housing Assistance - making this a $1.3 trillion tax increase on those that can least afford it. To top it all off, Trump’s plan will gut fair labor laws and life-saving environmental protections.

 Trump’s plan would:3,4

• Gut environmental protections
• Allow Trump cronies to push projects without public input
• Turn public highways into toll roads
• Sell off public property to distant Wall Street hedge fund landlords
• Pad the profits of contractors for projects already underway
• Give billions in tax handouts to Wall Street corporations
• Fuel the construction of more dirty energy pipelines
• Lower worker pay and sabotage worker power
• Produce few new jobs, as companies will just pocket subsidies on projects already underway

Democrats in Congress have better plans that don’t come at the expense of the social safety net and environmental protections. Their “Millions of Jobs” principles will create millions of jobs by repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools, supporting 21st century clean-energy projects and rebuilding water systems to keep our drinking water safe.¹ To stop Trump’s scam infrastructure plan we need to push Members of Congress to support the bold principles needed to create a just 21st century infrastructure bill.

Tell Members of Congress: to support the “Millions of Jobs” infrastructure principles and reject any plan that cuts the social safety net.

Not only is Trump’s plan a giveaway for billionaire developers and Wall Street but under his plan poorer cities with high Black populations like Flint, MI would have to compete with wealthier cities to get access to limited federal infrastructure funds.² Infrastructure plans like Trump’s are how we get lead in our water, high pollution, crumbling roads, diminishing home values, rats in our schools, and limited access to good jobs.

Trump’s plan will not just rob wealth from low-income communities, but it will rob us of our health too. It will dismantle the few remaining environmental protections in place, like NEPA - the National Environmental Policy Act - which require companies to do comprehensive studies of how their projects will impact things like air and water quality. By gutting NEPA and other environmental laws, it will be a return to the rampant and destructive corporate polluting of our communities like the 1950’s and 60’s. Since Black communities already suffer from disproportionately high air and water pollution, Trump will exacerbate the systemic health crisis of asthma, early childhood development issues, lead poisoning, and life-long heart and brain diseases.

But if enough of us speak out in the coming weeks, we can make sure that Trump’s plan is dead on arrival in Congress by pressing Congress to embrace the “Millions of Jobs” principles.

Tell Members of Congress: to support the “Millions of Jobs” infrastructure principles and reject any plan that cuts the social safety net.

Progressive groups and Democrats in Congress have a better vision for America’s infrastructure - one that invest in the communities that need it most and doesn’t line the pockets of Wall Street. More than 100 members of Congress are supporting the “Millions of Jobs” infrastructure agenda because it focuses on creating long-term, 21st century jobs - not tax breaks for Trump and his billionaire friends.  The “Millions of Jobs” principles include:

• Prioritizing public investment over corporate giveaways and selling off public goods.
• Prioritizing racial and gender equity, environmental justice, and worker protections.
• Protecting wages, expanding Buy American provisions, encouraging project labor agreements, and prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged communities — both urban and rural.
• Ensuring the wealthiest Americans and giant corporations who reap the greatest economic benefit from public goods pay their fair share for key investments.
• Ensuring infrastructure investment does not come at the expense of Social Security and other vital programs.

The “Millions of Jobs” vision offers the solutions we need without cutting the social safety net or gutting environmental and fair labor protections. We need to push every Member of Congress to support this bold alternative.

Tell Members of Congress: Sign on to the “Millions of Jobs” infrastructure principles.

- the Color Of Change team

#MILLIONSOFJOBS

http://www.millionsofjobs.org

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 References:

1. H.Con.Res.63 - Supporting efforts to enact a bold jobs and infrastructure package that benefits all Americans, not just billionaires. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/14819?t=10&akid=9030%2E3510445%2E7VAX93
2. "How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Could Strain America's Cities." The Atlantic, 29 December 2017. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/17220?t=12&akid=9030%2E3510445%2E7VAX93
3. Eric Jaffe, “How Highway Construction Helped Hitler Rise to Power,” CityLab, June 6, 2014.
4. Goodkind, “Trump’s Infrastructure Plan is About Making Money, Not Building Roads and Bridges.”

STAND UP FOR THE PUBLIC’S VOICE AND SOUND DECISION-MAKING ON PUBLIC LANDS!

For nearly 50 years, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, has been an empowering legal tool that allows communities to defend themselves and their environments from dangerous, rushed or poorly planned federal and industry projects. The law ensures that your community has a say when special interests want to build a toxic waste incinerator in your neighborhood or a dangerous pipeline next to your child’s school.

Now, the United States Forest Service, under pressure from the timber and mining industries, is considering putting our nation’s oldest and most important environmental law on the chopping block. This decision could result in massive logging, drilling and other extractive projects being rammed through without proper oversight, accountability or input from people like you.

But under the very law that special interests would like to gut, the Forest Service must solicit public input on their plan to undercut their NEPA process. Tell them that this won’t be the last time you have a say in how your public lands are managed.

To send the following petition, click here. 

Dear Chief Tooke,

I urge you to reject any proposal to weaken the Forest Service’s National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] process, and keep the law as it is. NEPA ensures that our communities have a say in major federal decisions that affect our public lands, health and safety. It is often the only way for people to voice their concerns about the consequences federal projects will have for their communities and demonstrate how local expertise can improve them. Our communities are safer and healthier because of NEPA.

While some argue that environmental analysis required by NEPA takes too long and results in bulky, unhelpful documents, such outcomes are caused by funding, staffing and training issues wholly unrelated to following the law. Instead of amending its NEPA regulations, the Forest Service should fight for more funds, personnel and education to ensure effective environmental review and public participation.

The Forest Service manages 193 million fragile acres of our national forests and grasslands from Puerto Rico to Alaska, from lands close to cities to remote wilderness. The Forest Service should conduct thorough analysis and weigh the irreversible consequences of each project the agency considers. These are serious decisions that deserve the “hard look” at environmental impacts that NEPA requires.

Robust public engagement and sound science are essential to informed decision making. This is, and must remain, the public’s right under NEPA. When we take the time to understand each other, we can jointly develop solutions to manage our public lands. Undercutting our founding environmental law in the name of “streamlining” is not and never will be the answer.

TAKE ACTION! Our nation’s oldest environmental law is under attack

Protect your community's voice on public lands

Robust public engagement and sound science are essential to informed decision making.

Tell the Forest Service: This is, and must remain, the public’s right under NEPA.

For nearly 50 years, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, has been an empowering legal tool that allows communities to defend themselves and their environments from dangerous, rushed or poorly planned federal and industry projects. The law ensures that your community has a say when special interests want to build a toxic waste incinerator in your neighborhood or a dangerous pipeline next to your child’s school.

Now, the United States Forest Service, under pressure from the timber and mining industries, is considering putting our nation’s oldest and most important environmental law on the chopping block. This decision could result in massive logging, drilling and other extractive projects being rammed through without proper oversight, accountability or input from people like you.

But under the very law that special interests would like to gut, the Forest Service must solicit public input on their plan to undercut their NEPA process. Tell them that this won’t be the last time you have a say in how your public lands are managed.

Extractive industries have long pressed the Forest Service to “streamline” public participation opportunities right out of NEPA. But without the feedback of stakeholders and the public, we could see ancient forests harvested with impunity, coal mines fast-tracked and watersheds decimated on our public lands.

NEPA is woven so deeply into our political framework that we often take it for granted, but it’s so fundamental to our democratic process that it’s considered the “environmental Magna Carta.” It can help reduce public controversy, build consensus with local officials and ensure that projects are done correctly from the start, often saving time and money. NEPA permits the public to hold the Forest Service accountable in court when the agency ignores important information or refuses to consider alternative measures that could better protect our air, water and communities. NEPA is a powerful legal tool because it works. Federal agencies have responded to the public’s concerns by modifying projects to reduce their impacts.

The Trump administration shouldn’t undercut NEPA—which applies to major federal decisions across all 190 million acres of National Forest lands—so that unaccountable bureaucrats can hawk your public lands to the highest bidder and ignore public outcry. Tell the Forest Service to keep the law as it is. Stand up for the public’s voice and sound decision-making on public lands!

- Ted Zukoski, Staff Attorney, Earth Justice