Action Alerts

Tell your representatives: No permitting deal that guts environmental laws and sacrifices communities

What's At Stake

Fossil fuel and mining industry allies in Congress are once again attempting to gut bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act to make it easier to greenlight dirty fossil fuel projects and poorly regulated mining operations.

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They want to open large parts of our public lands to extraction industries and issue permits to polluting industries that have a long history of polluting our water, land, and air. Most egregiously, they want to silence the voices of people most impacted by energy development from having a say in the projects built in their communities.

Earthjustice supporters have helped us defeat misguided and dangerous changes to our permitting process and environmental laws, and we need your help to do it again.

We must move away from fossil fuels and embrace our transition to clean energy, but we cannot do so without critical environmental protections. We do not have to choose between clean energy and environmental protection, we can do both. We can rapidly build out the clean energy infrastructure and supply chain we need to combat climate change while requiring strong environmental protections and engagement with impacted communities. Environmental laws like NEPA are a predicate to ensuring that our clean energy transition is grounded in justice and benefits all communities.

Join us and urge your Member of Congress to not agree to any permitting deal that guts environmental laws and silences communities.

At the People's Climate March on Apr. 29, 2017, more than 200,000 people filled the streets of Washington, D.C., to sound warnings of the Earth’s warming climate.
At the People's Climate March on Apr. 29, 2017, more than 200,000 people filled the streets of Washington, D.C., to sound warnings of the Earth’s warming climate. (Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice)

Delivery to Congress

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.