Climate Justice Alliance

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday evening, Climate Justice Alliance, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice submitted a formal comment letter to the Department of Energy (DOE) strongly opposing its proposed rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rule. 

They were joined by 89 signatories from environmental justice, Indigenous, and community organizations who also endorsed the letter, asserting that the move “jeopardizes essential environmental protections, curtails public participation, and undermines transparency, cornerstones that communities across the country rely on to safeguard their health, environment, and well-being.” 

The proposed rollback threatens to dismantle NEPA—widely known as “The People’s Law”—which ensures environmental and cultural protections through a transparent, science-based process. Weakening NEPA would strip communities of the ability to challenge harmful industrial projects that pollute air and water, accelerate climate change, and violate Tribal sovereignty.

NEPA acts as the legal thread connecting foundational public health and environmental protection laws like the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. Undermining it would erode critical environmental protections and public oversight, especially for frontline, Indigenous, and environmental justice communities.

“This Administration has set no guardrails for big business and polluters. DOE’s proposed rollback paves the way for more extraction, more emissions, and more environmental harm–compounding the public health crisis and accelerating land grabs from frontline, Indigenous, and environmental justice communities,” said KD Chavez, Executive Director of Climate Justice Alliance. “NEPA does not operate in a vacuum—it’s the legal thread that binds together our most critical environmental and cultural protection laws. Gutting it signals a dangerous disregard for public health, Tribal rights, and the future of our planet.”

According to Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “By ensuring the implementation procedures of NEPA are effectively null and void, the DOE is trampling on Tribal sovereignty and well-accepted agreements such as free, prior and informed consent with Tribal nations. Without any public input or oversight, our people will have no recourse against dirty industry and powerful interests that only look to feed their bottom line. This is a disaster in the making and must be reversed.”

“DOE’s rule guts public protections and shuts out frontline communities from decisions that impact their health. Replacing enforceable NEPA safeguards with vague guidance puts polluters first and justice last. Communities already burdened by pollution deserve stronger protections, not fewer. We need transparency, accountability, and a real voice for our communities. Not more loopholes,” stated Meisei Gonzalez, Climate Justice & Clean Air Advocate for GreenLatinos.

“NEPA is one of the few tools our communities have to challenge harmful projects that threaten our health and environment. For decades, Indigenous, low-income communities, and communities of color have borne the brunt of toxic pollution from energy infrastructure that poison their air, water, and land, costing lives and futures. Gutting NEPA undermines meaningful public participation, silences frontline voices, and deepens sacrifice zones. As environmental protections are stripped away, NEPA must be protected and strengthened to uphold health, justice, and democracy,” shared Anastasia Gordon, Director of Federal Policy, WE ACT for Environmental Justice. 

The rollback could lead to an increase in large-scale energy infrastructure projects without proper environmental review or community consultation, resulting in irreversible damage to ecosystems and sacred lands. As natural resources continue to deplete and the climate crisis intensifies, stripping away these protections is both reckless and unjust.

In their letter, the coalition urges the Department of Energy to:

• Reinstate all NEPA implementation procedures within the Code of Federal Regulations, where they are subject to public rulemaking, transparency, and legal enforcement;
• Reverse the reclassification of previously reviewed actions to ensure no energy-related activities are excluded from NEPA solely at the agency’s discretion;
• Restore NEPA applicability to Presidential permit processes to protect communities impacted by international energy infrastructure.
• Meet the legal and ethical responsibility of ensuring that federally approved projects: 
  • • Do not bypass environmental safeguards; 
    • Do not marginalize Tribal Nations and frontline communities; 
    • Are evaluated through a public, science-based, and just process. 

Click here to read the full NEPA Comment Letter.

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About Climate Justice Alliance

CJA is a growing member-based organization of nearly 100 urban and rural frontline and tribal communities, organizations, and supporting networks working to build a Just Transition away from the extractive economy and toward a more regenerative one. Visit our website at climatejusticealliance.org and follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Bluesky.

About GreenLatinos

GreenLatinos is an active comunidad of Latino/a/e leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.

About Indigenous Environmental Network

IEN is an alliance of Indigenous Peoples whose shared mission is to Protect the Sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination & exploitation by Respecting and Adhering to Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Law.

About WE ACT for Environmental Justice 

WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan-based, membership-driven organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents are meaningfully included in the development of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram.

The post Climate Justice Alliance, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice Lead 89 Organizations in Opposing DOE’S NEPA Rollback appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com 

In response to the introduction of the SPEED Act today by Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), Climate Justice Alliance Executive Director KD Chavez, issued the following statement.

“This permitting bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It claims to speed up environmental review and infrastructure projects, but in reality, it speeds up disaster. It does nothing to ensure efficient environmental oversight and strips already-limited legal recourse from communities—especially those most impacted by pollution—to defend themselves against polluters and powerful industry interests.

By narrowing what qualifies as a “major federal action” and weakening the requirement to study long-term or cumulative impacts, this bill strips away essential tools like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that Tribal Nations and frontline communities use to protect their lands, waters, cultural resources, and public health. And as if that weren’t enough, this so-called “bipartisan deal” blocks access to the courts and limits remedies for harmful federal decisions, further deepening environmental injustice and eroding trust.

Tribal governments were not meaningfully consulted with, despite the bill’s direct threat to cultural resources and sacred sites; all for the sole purpose of expanding AI infrastructure, certain to accelerate climate chaos. This is a clear violation of tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility. 

It’s time lawmakers listen to the people and put forward a permitting reform bill that safeguards communities, instead of sacrificing them. This kind of legislation has already been defeated numerous times, and for good reason. It’s time to stop beating this dead horse.

Let’s call it what it is: another attempt to repeal NEPA, not a serious effort at permitting reform.  If passed, this bill would accelerate a public health crisis and undermine treaty rights, rather than offer real, sustainable solutions.

Our representatives should focus on building stronger public engagement tools, ensure progress towards climate resiliency, protect public lands and sacred sites, and invest in clean, community infrastructure that safeguards public health, not the profits of polluting industries.” 

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The post Latest Permitting Proposal is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

As the federal government escalates its assault on unhoused communities, President Trump issues an inhumane executive order pressuring local governments to forcibly remove people experiencing homelessness from the streets. This order doesn’t offer care–it criminalizes survival.

We unequivocally reject this cruel approach and affirm that housing justice and climate justice are inseparable.

Housing insecurity exacerbates the harms of the climate crisis. Low-income communities–especially Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Pacific Islander, and poor white neighborhoods—are hit first and worst by climate impacts and frequently face housing instability, displacement, and unsafe living conditions. The reality is that housing is a frontline defense against climate chaos, and secure, healthy homes are essential for building community resilience.

Rather than investing in permanent, supportive housing and robust public health solutions, this executive order aims to remove people from public view through coercion and criminalization. That will do nothing to address the housing insecurity crisis that nearly 40 million people in the U.S. face–many of whom are rent- or mortgage-burdened, living paycheck to paycheck, or enduring unsafe housing riddled with mold, lead, and decay.

Meanwhile, land speculation, gentrification, and extractive development continue to displace communities across the country, especially on Indigenous lands and in climate-vulnerable areas. Housing must not be commodified–it is a human right. Everyone deserves a safe, affordable, climate-resilient place to call home.

We call on local and federal leaders to reject these dehumanizing tactics and instead embrace real, just, and long-term solutions—from rent stabilization and housing retrofits to climate-resilient infrastructure and land-back policies.

Artwork by Nina Yagual, a NYC born, Florida raised, self taught artist. With ancestral roots spreading deep across native lands. I’m heavily influenced by children because of their proximity to nature- both are playful, innocent and unapologetically honest. The poster is part of the Regenerative Economy Poster Portfolio.

The post Housing Justice Is Climate Justice: Trump’s Executive Order Criminalizes the Unhoused and Ignores the Root Causes appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com 

Washington DC – In the coming days, the Trump administration is expected to move forward with a repeal of the Endangerment Finding, a 2009 foundational rule that enables the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other major polluters. The Endangerment Finding acknowledges what science and frontline communities have long known: that climate pollution poses a direct and growing threat to human life.

Rather than enabling clean, green, and community-led solutions, this repeal proposal is part of the larger wave of anti-community and anti-science rollbacks that have defined the administration’s agenda and the larger goals of Project 2025. It must be unequivocally opposed. 

At stake is nothing short of our collective public health. Communities across the country–especially long overburdened by pollution–deserve protection, not deregulation for the benefit of polluters’ financial gain. The science is clear: reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical to our survival and the planet; what we do now will directly impact us and future generations to come.

This repeal would gut the EPA’s ability to implement critical protections under the Clean Air Act, igniting a public health emergency. With record-breaking heatweaves, flooding, and extreme storms growing in intensity, we should be strengthening protections–not dismantling the very tools that keep families and communities alive.

Allowing polluting industries to dig, burn, and dump more toxic waste will only exacerbate health crises across the country–worsening chronic illnesses like asthma, cardiovascular disease, heatstroke, and respiratory distress in every zip code.

At the very moment when the International Court of Justice has reaffirmed the obligation of nations to curb greenhouse gas emissions; this current administration’s efforts would do the opposite–intentionally escalating the climate crisis.

For the sake of families, our health, and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution should be upheld and expanded, not trampled upon by industry giants. 

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The post We Must Respect–Not Repeal–Hard-fought Community Protections like the Endangerment Finding appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

We need an AI Plan that protects people and the planet, not a plan that accelerates extraction

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com

Today, the Trump Administration released an AI plan that would fast-track industry growth by  rapidly expanding data centers, many of them in already climate-vulnerable environmental justice regions and creating exponential demand for dirty and dangerous energy. This plan is not about innovation for the public good. It’s about deepening the grip of Big Tech and Big Oil on our economy, environment, and democracy. A People’s AI Action plan, one that delivers on public well-being, shared prosperity, a sustainable future, and security for all is what’s in order.

The Administration’s plan “to win the AI race” eliminates the few existing protections and guardrails that exist to regulate AI. It gives corporations even more leeway, despite having seen the application of AI in surveillance, consumer price gouging, and the creation and spreading of misinformation and disinformation. 

Deepening entrenchment in fossil fuels is not progress. It is privatization of the public future. The unrestrained and unaccountable development of AI, integrated into every aspect of society will drain and pollute our water, air, and land, and structure the economy at the expense of already struggling families and underpaid workers. Massive data centers needed to power AI, which operate with little transparency, place enormous strain on already-fragile infrastructure — reviving the coal industry and expanding natural gas, draining public water in drought-stricken regions, destabilizing power grids, and driving up utility costs and housing prices for working people. The plan also opens up the development of public lands for data centers and new fossil fuel projects, when we need to end dependency on fossil fuels.

Among other harmful provisions, the plan: 

• Further reduces the power of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and reduces permitting requirements to fast-track data centers despite their dangers and harms to communities
• Opens federal lands to data center and fossil fuel projects and paves the way for nuclear energy
• Promotes military and surveillance use of AI

“Training an AI model can emit almost 5 times the lifetime emissions of the average American car. When heatwaves, storms and flooding, and wildfires are raging across the country, we should do everything we can to end our reliance on fossil fuels and protect people, not develop technologies that aggressively exacerbate the climate crisis and dig us deeper into the hole of fossil fuel extraction,” said Dwaign Tyndal, Executive Director of Alternatives for Community and Environment “We must question, do we really need every possible commercialized application of AI at the expense of our lives and our future generations?”

“This US AI Action Plan doesn’t just open the door for Big Tech and Big Oil to team up, it unhinges and removes any and all doors—it opens the floodgates, continuing to kneecap our communities’ rights to protect ourselves,” said KD Chavez, Executive Director of Climate Justice Alliance “With tech and oil’s track records on human rights and their role in the climate crisis, and what they are already doing now to force AI dominance, we need more corporate and environmental oversight, not less.”

“When developers look to site industrial facilities — whether it’s a power plant, an incinerator, or now, an AI data center — they target communities where Black and Brown people live, places with little political power and towns desperate for revenue,” said Sharon Lewis, Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition for Economic and Environmental Justice. “We call them sacrifice zones because that’s exactly what happens — people sacrifice their health, their well-being, and too often, their future, so that others can benefit. We’re told these data centers are harmless, but even though they might seem like they pose no risk, in reality, these energy-hungry, pollution-intensive facilities are just as damaging to our environment and health.”

Unchecked AI development fueled by tax incentives and profits will only pollute our water, air, and land, with deadly consequences on everyday communities. Climate Justice Alliance supports a People’s AI Action plan that is community-led, transparent, and fossil-free. Right now, we need clean supply chains that prioritize the health and safety of communities and minimize harmful environmental impacts, democratic processes of decision-making including adequate reporting, testing, and permitting, and a complete decoupling from fossil fuel energy and scams that offset energy emission claims. 

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The post Climate Justice Alliance Supports a People’s AI Action Plan appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.