Trump weakens environmental legislation following BP lobbying
An investigation by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s independent journalism team, reveals how BP successfully lobbied the Trump administration to weaken environmental laws – making it potentially harder to block major new oil and gas projects on climate change grounds.
The oil giant, together with the American Petroleum Institute (API), lobbied the White House to reform the 50 year old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) so that the climate impacts of major fossil fuel projects largely fall outside its scope.
Projects such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the auctioning of hundreds of thousands of acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming have been delayed by federal judges on the grounds that their climate impacts have not been adequately assessed under NEPA. Projects like these may now find it easier to move forward.
Mel Evans, senior oil campaigner for Greenpeace UK, commented: “The oil industry insists it has a right to dictate how the world fights the climate emergency, and how quickly change happens. But this shows that for all their lip service to the energy transition, BP and the rest of the sector are focusing their efforts on blocking real action to cut emissions and stabilise our climate.”