The Biden administration has laid out a roadmap for undoing many of the environmental actions of his predecessor, some of which were approved or enacted within the past six months.
President Joe Biden, hours after he was sworn in Wednesday, issued an executive order to start a process that could lead to amendments or even reversals of many of Donald Trump’s nearly 200 environmental policy decisions.
The president’s order pauses implementation of more than 100 policies while they are under review. Many of them directly affect the Pacific Northwest, and some unraveled compromises that took years, even decades, to reach.
“It’s gonna take some time for the agencies to undo all the damage Trump did, but we will see changes here in the Northwest,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. “It’s not guaranteed that Biden’s going to be a great environmental president, and we need to keep the pressure on.”
Biden also vowed to ensure that the United States rejoins the Paris Climate Accord.
Western Environmental Law Center Wildlands Program director and staff attorney Susan Jane Brown said the process of a new administration reviewing current policies to make sure they are consistent with their own priorities is normal, but that the president will have to do more than sign executive orders to make changes.
“What it will take to rollback the rollback is more process, more rulemaking,” Brown said. “There are a series of steps that have to take place.”
Brown said that process could take months or even years to finish, but also includes the opportunity for public comment.
NEPA
One of the major policies under review is the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which the Trump administration altered last summer. It eliminated environmental impact reports for certain projects and shortened the amount of time these evaluations must be under review. It also reduced the opportunities for public input.
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