Immigration, particularly by illegal aliens at the southern US border, is a contentious issue in 21st century America. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed concern about immigration’s probable impact on the unemployment rate. Homebuyers and renters are concerned about its impact on house prices and rents. Law enforcement questions its impact on crime rates. School districts are concerned about increased immigrant student enrollment and their academic progress. And Americans generally are concerned about immigration-related issues such as birthright citizenship and immigrant assimilation into the nation’s culture.
Now comes a lawsuit contending that President Biden’s immigration executive orders, signed on his first day in office in 2021, violated the provisions of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). Yes, immigration allowed by the Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seen allegedly harming the nation’s physical environment, with the leading environmental watchdog agency, the EPA, seemingly indifferent to this environmental harm.
The Oft-Maligned Environmental Impact Agency (EPA)
President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) in 1970, creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Americans were receptive at the time to a new, independent, executive branch agency responsible for the protection of human health and the environment, influenced by Rachel Carson’s best-selling book Silent Spring, which spawned the modern environmental movement.
NEPA was designed to force all federal agencies to account for the environmental impacts of their proposed policies, by requiring a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) of any proposed agency action. This EIS requirement has sometimes aroused Americans to accuse EPA of unnecessarily meddling in the personal use of their private property, potentially even amounting to regulatory takings in violation of the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, charges that have resulted in lawsuits against EPA.
Two recent Supreme Court rulings, for example, are West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, which ruled that EPA lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions related to climate change, and Sackett v. EPA in 2023, which stripped wetlands of their federal protections under the Clean Water Act. […]
— Read More: mises.org
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