Clean water, protected wildlife, and historic places are guarded by a handful of bedrock laws: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. S. 5653 would dismantle them. Bills like it hand polluters and extraction companies lasting legal advantages while ordinary people lose the power to hold them accountable. When a project breaks the law, the family downstream deserves a day in court. Courts must keep the power to stop illegal projects, and the public must keep a real chance to sue. If permits move too slowly, the answer is to fund the agencies and hire the scientists who review them, not to tear up the rules that protect communities. Gutting these protections in a single bill shuts the public out of decisions about their own land, water, and health. Oppose S. 5653 and any bill that guts these environmental laws or strips courts of the power to stop illegal projects.
