Jared Huffman: “the majority has suggested that the underlying bill's changes to NEPA on the scope of review simply codify the Supreme…”

“the majority has suggested that the underlying bill's changes to NEPA on the scope of review simply codify the Supreme Court's Seven County decision, but the SPEED Act actually goes much further than that Court decision. The Court left broad discretion for agencies to determine what impacts are relevant and how far the environmental analysis should go. The Seven County decision allows agencies to analyze environmental impacts when those impacts are reasonably foreseeable, although the Court did limit what agencies are required to review. The underlying bill and this amendment do something entirely different. They strip agencies of their discretion to consider a broad range of environmental impacts. This could have far-reaching consequences for communities, the environment, and public health, even when the science is clear and the consequences are very real. The bill would prevent agencies from examining the harms that communities across the country are living with right now. A perfect example is Louisiana's Cancer Alley, where predominantly Black neighborhoods face some of the highest pollution-related cancer risks in the Nation, and those risks come from cumulative emissions from many facilities that have been built over decades and impacts that are well documented and directly tied to Federal permitting decisions. Under this bill, agencies would largely be prohibited from considering any cumulative effects, anything that worsens that preexisting problem.”