A broad coalition of advocacy groups is coming to the legal defense of the Biden administration’s new standards for environmental reviews of major projects like highways and pipelines.
On Thursday, the Center for Biological Diversity, Fort Berthold POWER, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and 17 other groups asked a federal court in North Dakota for permission to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the second phase of the White House’s National Environmental Policy Act regulations.
“This partisan lawsuit is nothing more than a short-sighted attempt to silence communities that are in harm’s way and ignores both scientific and Indigenous knowledge when making federal decisions,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Jan Hasselman in a statement. “It’s greed over communities once again.”
The groups are looking to counter 21 Republican attorneys general who sued to block the Council on Environmental Quality’s regulations.