U.S. environmental law scale-back effort draws ire
DENVER — The Trump administration on Tuesday hosted the first of two hearings on its proposal to speed energy and other projects by rolling back a landmark environmental law. Opponents from Western states argued the long-term benefits of keeping the environmental reviews.
Among other changes, President Trump wants to limit public reviews of projects — a process that’s enshrined in the National Environmental Policy Act signed in 1970 by President Richard Nixon. The administration also wants to allow project sponsors to participate at an early stage of drafting federal environmental impact statements.
Dozens of environmental and tribal activists testified at the Denver hearing of the president’s Council on Environmental Quality.
The act “is not just a tool to reduce impacts to the environment,” said Gwen Lachelt. a commissioner in Colorado’s La Plata County. “It’s a basic tool of democracy.”
Representatives of oil and gas groups countered that multiyear environmental reviews of pipelines, coal mines and renewable energy projects kill jobs. increase costs and often outlast a project’s economic feasibility.
Proposed changes chagrined Jeannie Crumly, a rancher from Nebraska who has fought construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline for more than a decade. President Barack Obama canceled the project, only to have it resurrected by Trump.
“We’ve learned over the 10 years in our dealings with the pipeline supporters about falsehoods,” said Crumly, sporting a “No Oil on Our Soil” button. “The possibility that they could create their own environmental impact statement is just ludicrous to us.”
Trump has proposed narrowing the scope of the environmental law that along with the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act spell out the nation’s...