Comments in Response to the Trump Administration’s Proposed Rule to Remove Protections to Environmental Justice Communities

Tribal Nations, organizations, and individuals submit the following comments on the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ’s) Interim Final Rule, “Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations”, CEQ-2025-0002, which unilaterally withdrew the CEQ’s regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). CEQ’s Interim Final Rule is designed to enable the Administration to improperly regulate via guidance in a manner inconsistent with statute and judicial precedent. This departure from the law is designed to suppress consideration of environmental justice and cumulative impacts in NEPA analyses. The undersigned submit these comments to emphasize the relevance—in some cases, the centrality—of environmental justice considerations to fulfilling NEPA’s statutory mandates, and to urge withdrawal of the arbitrary and unlawful Interim Final Rule. The comments also urge withdrawal of the Administration’s February 19, 2025 Memorandum for Heads of Federal Departments and Agencies, which directs agencies through guidance to ignore environmental justice in their NEPA analyses.

On March 12, federal EPA administrator Lee Zeldin declared the agency would undertake its biggest-ever set of deregulatory actions. Those 31 actions affect, highway redevelopment, infrastructure including power plants, the oil and gas industry, mercury and air toxics standards and vehicle emissions. The agency is shuttering all its environmental justice offices and has canceled grants to fund environmental justice work.