The Department of Homeland Security will ignore dozens of environmental regulations as it adds to existing walls on the US-Mexico border.
According to a decree published in the Federal Register on Monday, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said wall upgrades in DHS’s El Paso sector wouldn’t have to comply with construction rules under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Nation Environmental Policy Act, and roughly two dozen other environmental laws.
Nielsen cited an Executive Order signed by President Trump last January, which directed her department to “take immediate steps to prevent all unlawful entries into the United States, to include the immediate construction of physical infrastructure to prevent illegal entry.”
The Secretary also invoked the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which, she argued, gave her “the authority to waive all legal requirements that I, in my sole discretion, determine necessary to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads.”
The notice applies only to twenty miles of already-existing border wall in New Mexico, where DHS will replace an existing vehicle barrier with a bollard wall.
Nielsen claimed the upgrade site is “an area of high illegal entry.” The Secretary noted that US Border Patrol apprehended 25,000 individuals attempting to cross in 2016, and roughly 67,000 pounds of marijuana.
“In order to ensure the expeditious construction of the barriers and roads in the project area, I have determined that it is necessary that I exercise the authority that is vested in me,” Nielsen wrote in the Federal Register, before rattling off the waived environmental rules, protecting everything from historic landmarks to tribal lands to migratory birds.
The environmental waivers won’t just excuse the physical sites of the wall. The notice states that regulations also don’t apply to access points to the project area, staging zones for equipment, “the conduct of earthwork, excavation, fill, and site preparation, and installation and upkeep of physical barriers, roads, supporting elements, drainage, erosion controls, and safety features.”
Although the current notice is limited to the El Paso Sector, the Trump Administration could exempt future border wall projects from environmental oversight.
“I reserve the authority to make further waivers from time to time as I may determine to be necessary,” Nielsen wrote.
The Washington Examiner reported that the Center for Biological Diversity is considering suing the administration over the move. Brian Segee, an attorney for the group, told the outlet: “Trump’s divisive border wall is a humanitarian and environmental disaster.”
