Late Friday Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue ordered the US Forest Service, which his department oversees, to expedite environmental reviews of projects to hasten them towards completion. Among the changes announced are the setting of time and page limits on the completion of environmental documents, including environmental assessments, and environmental impact statements, and expanding categorical exclusions from NEPA review. This will severely hamstring efforts to fully vet the impacts of particularly dangerous projects, such as proposed sulfide-ore copper mining right next to the Boundary Waters Wilderness.
“The systematic shredding of the environmental protection fabric of this country is appalling,” said Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters Executive Director Tom Landwehr. “By limiting the size and scope of environmental review of complex and risky projects like Twin Metals the Federal government is guaranteeing a greenlight for the destruction of the Boundary Waters and the thousands of jobs in surrounding businesses that depend upon a healthy Wilderness.”
This announcement comes on the heels of other Trump administration actions gutting environmental protections that put America’s public lands, including the Boundary Waters, at grave risk. Just two weeks ago the Trump administration finalized changes to the Clean Water Act that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said would prevent Minnesota from protecting the Boundary Waters from Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagata’s Twin Metals project. That same week the president used the Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to sign an Executive Order waiving environmental reviews and bedrock environmental laws for risky projects.