In response to the Supreme Court ruling in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America’s Director of Climate Justice, said:
“This ruling hands fossil fuel developers a hall pass to continue to destroy our climate. The Supreme Court’s decision endangers local communities, many of them Indigenous and rural, in favor of the dirty energy status quo. It weakens communities’ ability to stop harmful developments, ignores the cumulative harm of polluting projects, and gives federal agencies even more power to rubber-stamp infrastructure that threatens our water, air, and climate.
“After the hottest year on record, when the U.S. should be improving environmental safeguards and empowering frontline communities, this decision is a giant step backwards. Everyone deserves to live and work in communities with clean air and safe drinking water. We urgently need to strengthen laws like NEPA, not weaken or narrow them, so that we can prioritize the health of people over polluters and corporate greed.”
/ENDS