Contact: [email protected] WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Climate Justice Alliance, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Western Environmental Law Center led a broad coalition of national organizations representing thousands of frontline, environmental justice, and Indigenous communities across the U.S. to oppose a dangerous deregulatory permitting reform proposal being negotiated in Congress. We share a deep frustration and outrage over this sidelining effort which shows continued disregard for communities who have spent years demanding policies that protect their health, rights, neighborhoods, and pocketbooks, while also benefitting the larger public good. We issued the following joint statement: We cannot allow the lies to continue, as the facts are clear: If this backroom permitting reform deal is pushed through, it will enable a no-guardrails buildout of dangerous projects that will harm our health and environment, drive up energy costs, and violate our rights. This will be especially harmful for communities of color and lower income neighborhoods already overburdened by pollution and climate impacts. People of color, lower income, and Indigenous communities disproportionately live near fossil fuel infrastructure and endure greater climate impacts due to a legacy of prejudicial redlining practices. Legislation like this claims to advance clean energy, but will only lock in more fossil fuel projects for decades to come, continuing the immoral and damaging practice of using vulnerable communities as sacrifice zones. Environmental justice communities are sick and tired of being left out of conversations that impact them most, and yet this deal was negotiated in the dark and follows years of similar bad faith legislation communities successfully opposed (e.g. SPEED Act, EPRA). At a time when we need strong leadership to defend our rights from an administration putting polluter profits over our lives, we instead get another effort to remove accountability and democratic processes that give industry a free pass to harm. As energy demand grows, especially from rapidly expanding hyperscale data centers, Congress must not accelerate detrimental infrastructure buildout by shifting its costs, consequences, and risks onto the rest of us. Communities have already shared practical and evidence-based policy solutions for building clean energy while safeguarding our rights, health, environment, and democratic participation, including: Investing in federal agency capacity through funding and training to build expertise on clean energy development and community engagement; Embedding early and meaningful community engagement into permitting processes; Establishing robust environmental and public health analysis that includes cumulative impacts; Addressing transmission barriers acceleration directly rather than weakening environmental review; and Increasing transparency via publicly accessible information on permitting status, project details, environmental and public health impacts. These recommendations are shaped by successful project examples, literature review, and expertise demonstrated in the NEPA Does Not Delay StoryMap report, and are core aspects of the community-informed A. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice for All Act. This permitting reform proposal cannot be separated from the broader rollback of environmental and public health protections, as well as democratic rights under attack by the Trump administration. If passed, this package would further limit communities’ ability to protect themselves from harmful projects by completely gutting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act, among other bedrock environmental laws. In addition to being a climate-killer, this bill would leave Tribal lands, sacred sites, and historical and cultural items at risk of permanent destruction by restructuring and undermining the government-to-government consultation process under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Our coalition of environmental justice leaders and advocates across the environmental, conservation, public-health, climate, and energy movements and our partners will continue to oppose deregulatory permitting proposals that put corporate interests ahead of communities, and will advance solutions that deliver clean, affordable energy while protecting our health, democratic rights, and our shared environment. COALITION QUOTES Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director at Climate Justice Alliance: ‘Six years, the same message from frontline communities: listen to us, protect our health, and build solutions with us. Instead, each version of this backroom deal gets worse, and now, rather than listening to their own constituents, politicians are trying to force through legislation that will allow data centers to explode at an even faster pace, even as families across the political spectrum are saying enough is enough. Announcing a deal before the public can even see the bill is simply undemocratic. They may call it affordability, but affordable for whom and at what cost? You don’t make energy cheaper by sacrificing our health, our neighborhoods, and our children’s future. We’ve offered common-sense solutions. We’ve helped craft better policy. And once again, communities are being sidelined for industry gain under the very risky assumption that we won’t make our voices heard at the ballot box.’ Irene Burga, Climate Justice & Clean Air Director, GreenLatinos: ‘Frontline communities should not have to sacrifice their health, their voices, or their rights in the name of faster permitting. Latino communities already bear disproportionate pollution from highways, oil and gas operations, warehouses, ports, and other industrial facilities. Weakening environmental review and public participation will only make it easier to pile new harms onto communities already carrying far too much. Congress should be strengthening the protections communities rely on — not bargaining them away.’ Leslie Fields, Chief Federal Officer at WE ACT for Environmental Justice: ‘Here we go again, with the low down dirty deal of permitting reform redux. We must break the cycle of sacrificing vulnerable communities of color and lower income neighborhoods through deregulatory permitting reform. This proposal, like those before it, does not appropriately account for the burdens it will impose on communities, while vastly overstating the clean energy benefits it will achieve. It will instead further condemn communities of color and low income communities to even more environmental, health, and economic degradation. The dual climate and public health crises demand urgent energy policies that advance an affordable and fair clean energy future through processes that actually protect and support communities.’ Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center based in New Mexico: ‘The permitting deal is a betrayal of public lands, water and wildlife, and environmental justice values. Senator Heinrich has built a name for himself as a champion of these values, but he is poised to sweep aside that legacy in service of AI hyperscaler, energy, and finance lobbyists. This deal will also hand the Trump administration a major political win that will hobble the ability of future administrations to put in place an ambitious climate agenda that opens new doors to a thriving, prosperous world that respects—and does not, as this deal would do, bulldoze over—people and place.’ Jordan Harmon, Policy Specialist at Indigenous Environmental Network: ‘Indigenous Peoples deserve better than being treated as a negotiation pawn in backroom permitting deals. Any member of Congress who would vote to destroy the Tribal consultation process and violate the Treaty and trust obligations is no climate defender and no ally to Tribes.’ ### More detailed information and resources about permitting reform follows. Permitting reform: myths vs facts Permitting reform and communities fact sheet CJA July 20th bicameral letter on permitting Post about NEPA/permitting The post Broad Coalition Demands Affordable, Safe Energy, Rejects Polluter-Driven Permitting Reform appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.