Media Contact:
Camila Ruiz Gallardo, camilarg@earthworksaction.org
The proposed Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act prioritizes the interests of the fossil fuel and mining industries at the expense of essential protections for clean air, water, public health, and access to justice.
The SPEED Act, sponsored by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), would remove key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), one of the United States’ bedrock conservation laws.
“The SPEED Act would accelerate us in exactly the wrong direction, seeking to tilt the playing field even further away from impacted communities and in favor of polluters,” said Aaron Mintzes, Earthworks’ Senior Policy Counsel.
The National Environmental Policy Act has remained, for over half a century, communities’ best tool to learn about the potential environmental impacts of our government’s decisions. The law allows the public to influence the substance of those decisions, and the NEPA process provides defenses against unchecked corporate attacks on our environment. Public engagement and comments from community members often result in changes to projects that avoid or reduce harm to environmental and public health.
The SPEED Act would encourage agencies to first exclude projects from environmental review, cutting out public input before it can even start. If a mining or fossil fuel project does get reviewed, the bill limits agencies’ ability to consider climate, environmental justice, and other cumulative impacts. It would discourage consideration of new scientific information provided after a project is proposed—meaning agencies could exclude independent scientific or cultural data offered during public comment periods.
It also makes it much harder for communities to question or challenge inaccurate environmental reviews in court. It is already alarmingly easy for corporate polluters to exploit public lands. Further limiting Tribal and public participation will make the problem even worse.
SPEED Act proponents claim that NEPA litigation leads to major delays for important projects, yet only about 0.22% of NEPA decisions—roughly one in 450—are challenged in court. Delays most often result from companies delivering incomplete applications for poorly designed projects to under-resourced agencies.
“A better idea would be to strengthen NEPA and adequately fund and staff public lands agencies,” said Mintzes. “That way they’ll have the resources they need to ensure meaningful public engagement in permitting decisions and determine which proposals are in the public interest—and which are not.”
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