Republican-Led Efforts to Undermine Clean Air Act Favor Industry Interests Over Public Health
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce is holding a markup of a package of bills, including a number that would weaken the Clean Air Act. Taken together, the bills would diminish health protections afforded under the law and increase pollution, including by undermining national air quality standards and creating exemptions to fast-track permits for industrial projects so polluters can evade compliance measures. In response, Earthjustice Action Senior Legislative Representative Liz Ruben issued the…
Read MoreEarthjustice Action Statement on House Passage of SPEED Act
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. The bill would gut the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by limiting its scope and drastically limiting government accountability efforts when federal agencies fail to adequately consider the health, environmental, or economic impacts of decisions. After the bill’s passage, Earthjustice Action…
Read MoreDon’t Let “Permitting Reform” Help the Trump Administration Further Its Deregulatory Fever Dream
By: Stephen Schima, Earthjustice Action Senior Legislative Representative We can all agree that fighting climate change and mitigating its worst impacts requires us to think creatively, harness the power of American innovation, and quickly build the clean energy infrastructure of the future. But some in Congress are saying that to do so, we need to throw out bedrock environmental laws that have played an important…
Read MoreHouse Uses “Permitting Reform” to Give Polluters Permission to Contaminate our Water Resources
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3898, the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today (PERMIT) Act. The bill would significantly weaken several pollution controls in the Clean Water Act, shield polluters from accountability, and hamper the ability of states and Tribal governments to protect their water resources from well-documented pollution sources…
Read MoreRepublicans Seek to Weaken Clean Air Act Under the Guise of “Permitting Reform”
WASHINGTON, DC—Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment will mark up a package of bills that would weaken the Clean Air Act. Together, the bills would create new loopholes and procedures to fast-track permits for large industrial projects regardless of the risk of increased pollution. The markup occurs as Congress is voting…
Read MoreFight for Proper Permitting Reform
Congress is once again in the throes of debating numerous ‘permitting reform’ proposals aimed at speeding up permit approvals for large projects, particularly those that deal with how we get our energy.
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