WASHINGTON — Today, a diverse coalition of environmental justice, labor, and conservation groups moved to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the Biden Administration’s finalized phase II regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The lawsuit, filed by twenty-one Republican state attorneys general, aims to block the updated regulations that ensure federal decisions get input from communities, Tribes, and climate change scientists.
In April 2024, the Council on Environmental Quality finalized the phase II regulations that reversed many of the Trump Administration’s harmful changes to the bedrock environmental law. The updated regulations require federal agencies to consider climate and environmental justice impacts in their NEPA analyses and mandate meaningful, early consultation with impacted communities, including Tribes.
Hallie Templeton, Legal Director at Friends of the Earth, said this:
As the Magna Carta of US environmental laws, it is of paramount importance that the strength and integrity of NEPA is upheld at all costs. This Republican-led lawsuit is a dangerous attack on recent improvements to help our country combat climate change, mitigate environmental justice impacts, and include Indigenous knowledge in the environmental review process. Chipping away at our bedrock environmental laws will benefit dirty industries, silence the communities they pollute with impunity, and impede much-needed transparency around the government’s activities.
Read the state’s lawsuit.
Read the motion to intervene.
Read the client declarations on the importance of NEPA.
Communications contact: Brittany Miller, [email protected], (202) 222-0746
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