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Explore our coverage of government and politics.

'A Devastating Blow': VLS Professor On Proposed Rollbacks To Environmental Law

A grain truck drives past a Keystone pipeline pumping station.
Nati Harnik
/
Associated Press
A grain truck drives past a Keystone pipeline pumping station. President Donald Trump has taken action to clear the way and speed up development of a wide range of commercial projects by cutting back federal review of their impact on the environment.

President Trump has proposed major changes to decades-old environmental regulations. The proposal would overhaul how the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is implemented, meaning many big projects like highways and pipelines would no longer require a federal assessment of environmental impact.Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School and an expert on NEPA, joined VPR's Mitch Wertlieb to talk about what would change under the proposal, and what the chances are that the changes will make it through legal challenges.

Parenteau stressed the importance and foundational nature of the law.

“It’s a 50-year-old law, ushered in the whole environmental movement in the United States, and it created the opportunity to adopt a whole range of laws that we now take for granted: Clean air, clean water, endangered species and many, many more," Parenteau said.

Parenteau believes the proposed changes pose a real threat to the law's intended goals.

"These changes are all about fast-tracking more and more fossil fuel infrastructure at the very moment in time that the science is saying, 'We cannot keep doing that.'" — Pat Parenteau, Vermont Law School

“It’s a devastating blow to the core values that NEPA is designed to advance," he said. "These changes are all about fast-tracking more and more fossil fuel infrastructure at the very moment in time that the science is saying, 'We cannot keep doing that.'"

The Trump administration is hoping the Supreme Court will be more sympathetic than lower courts have been to rolling back NEPA regulations, but Parenteau thinks the outcome is far from guaranteed if the proposal is challenged.

"You can be surprised by what justices might do," he said. "Because the way conservative justices view the power of the federal government, they view that power very skeptically, when it’s used to advance environmental goals, as well as retreat from environmental goals, to change policies willy-nilly, if you will, without good strong justification. So I think some of the Trump administration folks that are counting on votes from these justices may be surprised by the time some of these cases get there.”

A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.
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