Trump Has Largely Deprived the US Public of a Voice on Environmental Policy: This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Public participation is a hallmark of environmental regulation, embedded in every major environmental statute enacted over the past half-century. Yet the Trump administration has systematically sought to curtail public input into the government’s environmental decision-making by shirking decades of precedent and making strained interpretations of longstanding federal law.
Looked at collectively, the pattern of public disenfranchisement is unmistakable.
There are good reasons to speed up the process of writing regulations and issuing permits, but truncating public input has serious costs. It can result in flawed policy that is harder to implement, full of avoidable error, and more vulnerable to being struck down by courts. Input from industry, public interest groups, academics, states, and other agencies gives regulators critical feedback on the potential impact of their proposed rules, helping them to anticipate and avoid unforeseen problems.
Stakeholders possess information, experience, and expertise the government lacks, and they can suggest alternatives to make rules more effective or less costly. By testing agency assumptions and pushing officials to explain their rationale, public comments perform a crucial vetting function. The process also helps to make government more accountable by alerting Congress to potential pitfalls and building a record in the event of judicial review.
In 2025, the administration began stifling public input on the rigorous environmental reviews required by the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. Under this law, federal agencies must evaluate and disclose the foreseeable environmental impacts of the major projects they build, fund, or approve, from highways to dams to data centers. The point of NEPA disclosure is to avoid unnecessary harm by having agencies look before they leap.
Research shows that when people participate in decisions that affect them, they are more likely… #EnvironmentalPolicy #PublicParticipation