Dear NRDC Action Fund Supporter,

While America faces the crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and its history of racism and inequity, President Trump is pushing ahead with an anti-environmental assault that would exacerbate both challenges in one fell-swoop.

The Trump administration just finalized its disastrous rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — a landmark law that empowers people to make their voices heard about hazardous projects in their communities and stop pollution in their own backyards.

This attack on NEPA is an attack on democracy, our environment, our climate, and YOUR voice.

And NRDC will respond immediately, taking the Trump administration to court if that's what it takes to stop this reckless assault on one of the pillars of environmental law. And we couldn't respond so effectively without the support of NRDC supporters like you — thank you.

Get all the facts about Trump's harmful attacks on NEPA, and how NRDC and our allies and partners are fighting back, and more at NRDC.org.

If Trump's NEPA rollback is allowed to stand, disastrous polluting projects — like coal mines, highways, incinerators, oil and gas drilling operations, and pipelines — could be expedited with little-to-no environmental review, public input, or analysis of long-term impacts on the environment, our climate, or the people who live near these projects.

Make no mistake: this rollback is a clear attempt to silence people and make it easier for industry to pollute our communities.

And it will further marginalize low-income communities, Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color who already suffer disproportionately from the adverse health impacts of industrial pollution — and who have been hit the hardest by the COVID-19 crisis. This is especially critical as preliminary health studies suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with higher death rates from the coronavirus.

NEPA gives people the right to weigh in before a highway project tears up their neighborhood or a pipeline goes through their backyard. Steamrolling their concerns will mean more polluted air, more contaminated water, more health threats, and more environmental destruction — and it will encourage the government to ignore how massive polluting projects contribute to climate change.

We must — and will — do everything in our power to stop the Trump administration's rollback and save NEPA, including fighting back in federal court if necessary.

This dangerous new rollback comes weeks after another sweeping executive order that prods administration officials to ram through polluting projects without public notice, let alone adequate environmental reviews.

And it comes amid an onslaught of other Trump administration rollbacks over the past few months — including a move that could allow industrial polluters to evade penalties if they unlawfully fail to monitor and report on their pollution during the coronavirus crisis.

NRDC is fighting many of these rollbacks in court — just as we'll fight to save NEPA as well, if that's what it takes. NRDC has filed 118 lawsuits against the Trump administration. With the law on our side, we've won nearly 90 percent of the cases resolved so far.

• Read more about this at NRDC.org.
• Then share the news about this new Trump rollback on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for standing with us at this critical moment.

Sincerely,

Sharon Buccino
Senior Director, Land Division, NRDC