Trump Executive Order Threatens 700 U.S. Wetlands; Leading Enviro Org Gears up for Battle
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) — One of America’s most prominent environmental watchdogs has sounded an alarm about President Donald Trump’s January 20 declaration of an alleged “National Energy Emergency.” The Center for Biological Diversity (the Center) is taking legal action against the administration for President Trump’s related Executive Order 14156 that charges the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite as many as 700 pending permits for energy and infrastructure projects, mostly relating to fossil fuel exploitation.
On Feb 20, 2025, the Center filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for illegally expediting the pending permits for projects that would “fill or destroy wetlands across the United States.” The Center asserts that bypassing standard environmental review of the permits in question will result in irreparable damage to important wetlands and waterways, in addition to threatening endangered species across the country.
Wetlands act as a natural protection against coastal flooding as well, and as a natural sequester of carbon dioxide (Co2). The Center has therefore put the Trump Administration on notice that a lawsuit is coming.
And the government may have its work cut out for it too, as the Center boasts a 83 percent success rate when suing the government in federal court on wildlife and public lands lawsuits. Alongside WildEarth Guardians, the NGO was responsible for some 800 species finally being listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2011 after a monumental decade-long legal battle. To boot, the org claims it has protected more wildlife habitat than “twice the size of California” and proudly says that’s more than any other NGO of the same class “bar none.”
A Boggy Area High in California’s Sierra Nevada Range — Video: Dakota Otero, for: EnviroNews
Though it’s common for the Center to sue the federal government in tandem with other prominent environmental groups like Western Watersheds Project, EarthJustice and Defenders of Wildlife, the Center confirmed with EnviroNews that they’re “flying solo” on this legal action.
“Trump’s national energy emergency is illegal, and the Army Corps’ attempt to implement it will do enormous environmental damage and harm [to] some of this country’s most cherished wildlife,” Brett Hartl, Government Affairs Director at the Center, said in a press release. “Mindlessly destroying the Florida manatee’s habitat and killing whooping cranes has nothing to do with energy. For Trump it’s all about making symbolic gestures and putting cruelty on full display, not solving actual problems.”
The Center’s analysis laments that approval of the pending permits without the long-standing NEPA-mandated environmental review processes (more on that later) could cause significant harm to a variety of wildlife. The review indicates that these projects will jeopardize polar bears, whooping cranes, manatees, salmon, and sea turtles among other threatened and endangered species around the nation.
A Long-Billed Dowitcher Forages in a Mucky Wetland Area in Marin County, California — Video: Dakota Otero, for: EnviroNews
As to a timeline for the legal action in defense of America’s wetlands, Hartl tells EnviroNews the Center will have to wait 60 days to file the lawsuit per the requirements of the ESA. “Between now and then we will be figuring out which wetlands are approved and the damage [which that presents] – the Army Corps database updates relatively quickly,” Hartl said.
“The United States has already become a fossil fuel petrostate to the detriment of this country’s most imperiled animals and plants,” Hartl further lamented. “The actual national emergency we face is the havoc being caused by fossil fuels and climate change.
Hartl says it’s hard to predict but guesses that many of the impacts from Trump’s executive order to the Army Corp would come in the gulf coast region since it’s an area where fossil fuel extraction and exports are centered. He also cited the Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho as a mining operation that could threaten important wetlands in the West.
“The Stibnite Gold Project is the equivalent of high-risk, open-heart surgery for the South Fork Salmon River headwaters, and the watershed will be worse off as a result, not better,” John Robison, the Idaho Conservation League’s public lands and wildlife director, told the Environmental Integrity Project.
Another hotly contested project in the West that could move forward is the West Coyote Hills housing subdivision proposed by Chevron and Pacific Coast Homes on environmentally vulnerable lands in Southern California’s Orange County.
The analysis of the “emergency” order from the Environmental Integrity Project indicates that a large number of the projects targeted for fast-track review, predictably revolve around fossil fuel-related permits including pipelines, gas-fired power plants and electric transmission lines. States with the most affected projects include West Virginia (141), Pennsylvania (60), Texas (57), Florida (42) and Ohio (41). The long contested Enbridge Line 5 tar sands oil pipeline under Lake Michigan is another permit that could result in significant environmental impact.
“The Trump Administration appears to be gearing up to use false claims of an ‘energy emergency’ to fast-track and rubber-stamp federal approvals for projects across the country that will be destructive to America’s wetlands, waterways, and communities,” David Bookbinder, Director of Law and Policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement.
Bookbinder added that Trump’s end-run around the environmental review process “is not only harmful for our waters, but is illegal under the Corps’ own emergency permitting regulations,” suggesting that a protracted legal fight could be on deck.
Red-Winged Blackbird in a Marsh in Montana, USA — Video: Savanna Urry, for: EnviroNews
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is also under fire in general terms. The 1970 law requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impact of their proposed actions before making decisions on permit applications, adoption of federal land management policies, or construction of highways and other public facilities. But recently, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) removed regulations on how to implement NEPA and released new guidance on how federal agencies should regulate the permitting process.
Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen lamented the CEQ’s actions, calling attention to the dire ramifications for communities around the nation if NEPA is gutted:
This is the latest play to slash and burn safeguards with zero care for the consequences in real life,” Dillen asserted… “This move won’t improve decision-making or make the government more effective. Tossing out the rules that have been in place for 50 years is a recipe for chaos and gridlock. As intended, eliminating all the NEPA rules will ‘unleash’ oil and gas development under the guise of a fake energy emergency. Much more sweepingly, it endangers the essentials that only our government can reliably protect, including clean air and water.
Regarding the order to expedite the Army Corp permits, Kristen Schlemmer – Senior Legal Director for the Houston-based Bayou City Waterkeeper – expressed concern about federal agencies failing to learn the lessons of how important wetlands are for protection against flooding that has increased in Texas in recent years due to hurricanes and other heavy weather. Schlemmer explained it this way to the Environmental Integrity Project:
After Hurricane Beryl, Hurricane Harvey and countless other unnamed rainstorms, those of us living across greater Houston and along the Texas coast have learned again and again how important wetlands are to us as a natural form of flood protection — and what happens when wetlands are lost. Fast-tracking projects that destroy wetlands will rob our communities of critical wetland protections and place us at greater risk, without any benefits.
Trump’s emergency energy declaration has been widely lambasted by environmental watchdog groups as a contrived giveaway to the fossil fuel powers that supported his Presidential campaign.
“This is a false emergency,” Schlemmer concurred in a comment to Inside Climate News. “This is going to lock in more climate change harms at a time when we need to be taking major action.”
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