DrewCEarthjustice

The law in question, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), gives the president authority to withdraw areas from availability for offshore drilling. That’s what Obama did when he protected most of the Arctic and part of the Atlantic. It was plainly legal for him to do so, and no one has challenged it. While OCSLA gives the president authority to withdraw areas from availability for oil drilling, it doesn’t give the president authority to reverse those withdrawals. That authority rests with Congress, and Trump’s effort to grab it for himself violated both OCSLA and the constitutional separation of powers. Which is why we sued.

Trump’s executive orders have been all over the map. A few of them have actually done something substantive, like the executive order purporting to reverse President Obama’s withdrawal of most of the Arctic and part of the Atlantic Oceans from availability for offshore oil drilling (about which we promptly sued the president). But many of the other executive orders have looked more like excuses to hold a media event, because an executive order wasn’t necessary to accomplish what the executive order did. For example, last month the president signed an executive order mandating a review of previous presidents’ designation of national monuments. National monument designations are incredibly valuable, so President Trump shouldn’t be questioning them. But all the executive order did was order the Interior Department to do an internal review about the monument designations. The president didn’t need to sign an executive order to accomplish such a review. Heck, he could have had a White House intern call the Interior Department and convey the directive to do the review that way. It’s hard not to read executive orders like that as an exercise in posturing to a small number of anti-monument idealogues.

Our goal in filing the lawsuits is to get court orders reversing the illegal actions. For example, in our challenge to Trump’s order that purports to overturn Obama’s withdrawal of most of the Arctic and parts of the Atlantic Oceans from availability for offshore oil drilling, our goal is to get a court order declaring Trump’s action illegal and invalid, which would have the effect of confirming the protection of these ocean waters against oil drilling.

We are still litigating over the Dakota Access Pipeline. We may or may not win the case. But we don’t give up until the case is over, and the case isn’t over. Whether or not we succeed in stopping the pipeline, the case has been incredibly valuable. It’s galvanized unity and empowerment among Native American groups. Things will never be the same in the fight for Native American rights, thanks to the courage and commitment of the Standing Rock Sioux. It has been an honor for Earthjustice to represent them.

Earthjustice filed hundreds of environmental lawsuits against the Obama administration, including many over the issues you list. For example, we filed a series of lawsuits against offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean, which resulted in the oil industry’s decision to pull out of the Arctic Ocean. And we sued the Obama administration over various oil and gas pipelines, including the Dakota Access Pipeline. There are many other examples of lawsuits we filed against the Obama administration to protect the environment. It’s not unusual that we’re suing the Trump administration over the environment – we do that against every presidential administration. What is unusual about the Trump administration is how bad their policies are for the environment, basically across the board; how swiftly they’ve moved to act against the environment so early in the administration; and how cavalier they’ve been about not following the law as they’ve taken their anti-environment actions.