When things like highways and pipelines are built, they don’t exist in a vacuum — they take over land that may have otherwise been used or occupied by any number of flora and fauna. These human-made pieces of infrastructure may be essential to our lives, but they also can have adverse effects on other creatures and the planet itself. Unfortunately, President Trump and his cohorts don’t appear particularly interested in that. According to the New York Times, a new rule proposed by the Trump administration would allow for ignoring potential environmental damage — including contributions to climate change — that federal agencies’ major infrastructure projects would have.
If Trump has his way, projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other major fossil fuel projects will no longer be required to take into account potential environmental impacts prior to construction. Additionally, the administration intends to narrow the types of projects that even require an environmental review before going forward. That would allow federal agencies to skip vital steps of the construction process, including disclosing plans for waste disposal, if the project will cause any harm or disruption to surrounding ecosystems or if construction may contribute to air or water pollution.
The proposed changes would effectively upend the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 50-year-old standard signed into law by President Richard Nixon that established the need to take environmental factors into consideration when undertaking large construction projects. The law is relatively simple but had a major impact on how the federal government went about building infrastructure. Prior to the passing of the NEPA, agencies operated on a mission directive only, so building a highway simply meant finding the shortest distances and ignoring what land may be torn up in the process. Once the law was put into place, federal agencies were given an additional directive: to recognize our roles as trustees for the generations that will succeed us and work to the best of our ability to preserve the environment for them. Continue reading.