Shock Doctrine: While we focus on COVID-19, federal rollbacks on environmental protection accelerate

“Shock Doctrine” – when administrations push forward controversial policies while citizens are distracted by a natural disaster or crisis. 

The current federal administration has been no friend to conservation or the environment, rolling back nearly 100 federal regulations since taking office in 2017. Landmark environmental laws have been gutted, including the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Clean Water Act (CWA). Since the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic captured the full attention of the American public, the scale of rollbacks has dramatically accelerated.  

Today, April 22, 2020, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. A day in which we all come together to celebrate this astounding planet, an occasion to celebrate the incredible environments we love and cherish, and specifically for this year, to a call to action around climate change.

However, under the cover of COVID-19, the current administration has continued its assault on our environment. Today, as we prepare to celebrate this golden anniversary of Earth Day, this administration’s Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) is publishing its final rule for key rollbacks of the Clean Water Act(CWA).

This “streamlining” of the CWA will ease regulations for polluters and threaten drinking water for over 110 million people in the United States. This rule hurts the people and ecology of Idaho moreover: it discontinues protections for many headwaters and seasonal streams, and completely removes protections for wetlands, as each of these is no longer included in the inventory of “waters of the United States.”

In an assault on our most bedrock environmental policy, our environmental Magna Carta, the administration is attempting to overhaul the environmental analysis process of NEPA. In an effort to curtail the role that science and the public play in the review process, the Forest Service has proposed several new categorical exclusions that would allow the agency to move project planning behind closed doors by cutting the public out of the decision-making process. 

The goal of NEPA is to foster better decisions to protect, restore, and enhance our environment and is based on three key principles: 1) transparency; 2) informed decision making; and 3) giving the public a voice. The busy streets of our nation have gone quiet, and in the meantime, this administration is attempting to ensure our silence on matters of the environment long after this pandemic passes.

These changes would create loopholes that increase the pace and scale of resource extraction, including logging and mining, all while limiting the scope of public awareness and input on proposed projects. While the administration should be focusing on the health of its citizens, providing the necessary medical care and testing, it has taken advantage of this unprecedented crisis to roll cut environmental protections to benefit polluters – especially the fossil fuel industry.

Moreover, the administration has made the decision to cut the EPA’s funding for scientific research by 43%, which drastically reduces the agency’s capacity to protect the health of Americans and the environment. 

Americans are isolating in their homes, with thoughts squarely centered on their families and how their next month’s rent might get paid. It is excusable that the current administration continues to pursue these overhauls that are anti-environment, anti-science, and anti-conservation, while the country is consumed in a major health emergency. As of this writing, over 45,000 Americans have lost their lives due to COVID-19, and we’re quickly approaching 1 million confirmed cases (over 2.5 million worldwide). For the first time in American history, all 50 states are under a declared state of emergency. Yet, while the economy has shut down, the administration is working hard to radically overhaul our environmental and conservation priorities. 

Taking advantage of the current crisis to scale back science-based conservation policy to the benefit of pollution-causing industries without being noticed is, by definition, “shock doctrine”. As we celebrate this Earth Day, let it also serve as a call to action. It is an opportunity to raise awareness and speak out against rollbacks on environmental protections that threaten our health, water, and wildlife. The voices of even a few concerned citizens can make a difference. These actions will not go unnoticed, and rollbacks on environmental protections are a threat to our health, our natural resources, and our nation’s progress.