An environmental group sued four Trump Cabinet-level agencies Wednesday, accusing them of failing to release information about the administration’s plans to boost the oil industry and other fossil fuel producers by rolling back environmental safeguards.
The lawsuit, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks information from the Interior Department and EPA, along with the Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. It asks for details about how the agencies plan to carry out President Donald Trump’s January executive order that directed agencies to nix regulations and policies that “impose an undue burden” on the fossil fuel industry.
The Center for Biological Diversity said it filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents Feb. 20, but has yet to receive any records.
“The Trump administration and DOGE continue to dismantle environmental safeguards across the nation without a modicum of transparency,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the center. “It seems obvious that polluters and other special interests are completely in the driver’s seat and probably ghostwriting all of Trump’s pro-fossil fuel directives. Why else would Trump officials be so defiant about illegally keeping the public in the dark?”
