House Republicans trying to tweak cornerstone environmental laws
Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and allies on the House Resources Committee have laid siege to two key environmental laws. They’ve inserted language into the House version of the energy bill to remove numerous drilling projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates environmental impact assessments and citizen involvement for projects on public lands. Industry and developers have long groused that NEPA stalls progress with long, costly environmental reviews and lawsuits. Pombo and pals have also drafted a rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that would fundamentally reorient federal agencies away from long-term planning to return species to robust health, which opponents argue stalls progress with long, costly environmental reviews and … wait a minute, this sounds familiar. Says Defenders of Wildlife’s Jamie Rappaport Clark, the rewrite “takes a wrecking ball to the whole Endangered Species Act.”
