Weakening of NEPA Could Threaten Existence of Wild horses and Burros
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT (NEPA) UNDER ATTACK
For immediate release – January 13, 2020
Media Contact: Lisa Friday, Director of Communications, (804) 389-8218
Colorado Springs, COLORADO – In a press conference January 9, President Trump announced significant impending changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA,) a landmark piece of legislation signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, just one year prior to the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. “NEPA requires all federal agencies to go through a formal process before taking any action anticipated to have substantial impact on the environment.” This formal process includes environmental assessments, environmental impact statements, and a period of public comment as well as affected government agencies.
“NEPA is a key policy in the protection of our public lands and all wildlife that live there. It fulfills our first amendment right - giving the public and other agencies a voice in government proposals, states Ginger Kathrens, Director of The Cloud Foundation, “NEPA has been the cornerstone of many of our successful lawsuits filed in defense of wild horses and burros. Without it, wild horses and burros are even more vulnerable to removal from their homes and families.”
By weakening NEPA, environmental and wildlife protection organizations fear the administration is paving the way for unfettered development of our last remaining wild lands for private profit. The Trump Administration has a history of peeling back protections on national monuments, such as Bears Ears in Utah, in order to open them up to logging, energy development and other profit-making ventures.
The Bureau of Land Management acting chief William Perry Pendley blamed excessive environmental regulations as a major reason for his agency's difficulty in controlling wild horses and burros on federal rangelands across the West. In essence, weakening NEPA regulations will allow cattle ranchers and other private interests to write their own Environmental Assessments.
“Stripping away regulations that have been in effect for fifty years will allow development and desecration of America’s land and wild horse and burro icons without appropriate environmental oversight,” states Lisa Friday, Director of Communications for The Cloud Foundation, “Who will monitor these conflicts of interest?”
Ironically, (and appropriately), NEPA requires a period of public comment on these proposed changes. The Cloud Foundation will send out an alert when we are notified of the 60-day comment period along with list of relevant points to raise. We will need every voice (and pen) in the fight to preserve our environmental protection process for the well-being of our public lands, and all of the wildlife that live there.
TCF Board Member Explains Proposed NEPA Revisions
The Cloud Foundation opposes the latest attempt by the Trump Administration to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). While many proposed changes are details that could streamline procedures and improve operations, key proposals would allow some federally funded projects to escape any review, radically limit the time for reviews, and discourage consideration of cumulative or long-term effects. While many federal agencies have seen staff reductions, the time permitted to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (which is done for the most complex or controversial projects) would be cut in half. Proposals to allow private companies to write parts of their own environmental analyses are worse than the fox guarding the hen house. While the underlying law remains in effect unless changed by Congress, important proposed administrative changes would drastically weaken the law.
NEPA doesn’t stop projects, it doesn’t hinder progress – NEPA prevents doing dumb and harmful things. Its purpose was and is to “produce better decisions [that] further the national policy to protect and enhance the quality of the human environment.” It requires federal agencies to compare impacts of alternative ways to accomplish projects, and to choose the smartest and best alternative. NEPA also gives the public a place at the table, a chance to review and comment on proposed actions. Public participation and review would be severely limited by these proposals.
This is not the time to weaken environmental safeguards. Climate change threatens our lives in ways seldom seen before, and the trend is for it to get worse. Native species such as wild horses are threatened by habitat reduction, roundups, and myths of overpopulation. Entire ecosystems are threatened by increasingly unregulated development that also would exacerbate climate change.
In this case, details matter. Reading the proposal by the President’s Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ), one is overwhelmed by detailed proposals to modify language and procedures, such as replacing the word “insure” with “ensure,” to reflect current usage. NEPA has been updated many times in its 50-year history. But hidden within this proposal are details with potentially ominous consequences. Proposals to exempt certain types of projects, limit review time, and to avoid analyzing long-term effects (such as climate change or ecosystem viability) are buried within, waiting to spring forth to benefit chosen businesses and economic interests. Meanwhile, potentially damaging long-term and indirect effects will await unanalyzed, to threaten the quality of our environment, and reduce the effectiveness of private and public investments.