ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change ClassACTion Alerts

ClassACTion Alert 7: Stop the Environmental Harm Caused by Data Centers

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 20:45:53 GMT

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The ClassACT HR73 Environment and Climate Change Working Group is acting to warn our classmates and others about the impact of explosive growth of data centers across the United States. Here we concentrate on climate and water impacts. Subsequent alerts will deal with other pollution and health effects, electricity costs, and the added stress on electric grids.

What is Happening Today

Data centers receive, store, and process vast amounts of information. Some data centers are also the flesh and the bones of Artificial Intelligence. They house the servers, storage and network equipment that enable AI activities, such as ChatGPT, to be deployed and to grow in complexity and scale. All data centers consume large amounts of energy. Their cooling systems run without interruption 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

Champions of data centers in the tech world argue that without a steady increase in their number and physical size, businesses and government functions will falter and AI will never reach its full potential; scientific research will be stymied and national security will be harmed. Federal and state agencies will not be able to store the massive amounts of data essential to fulfill their duties in the 21st century. These champions maintain that ordinary denizens of the digital world will lack adequate cloud storage, and that their online AI queries will go unanswered.

Accelerated by AI developments, data centers are proliferating. With over 5,000 already in the US in 2026, more are under construction and more are in planning. Newer ones often consume more energy than earlier ones. One large center devoted to AI can use as much electricity as a city of 10,000 homes!

At present, half or more of the electricity used by data centers is generated by burning fossil fuels, natural gas and coal. Contributions to climate change and pollution are accelerating. Companies that run data centers talk about building their own generating plants, including nuclear ones, but that has not yet happened. Microsoft says it will pay its own way and not burden communities with added electricity costs. Imagine that—paying for the electricity you actually consume! But it's a novel commitment that no other company has made.

Data center cooling systems often use huge volumes of water, in some rural locations pumped directly from aquifers crucial for public water supply and agriculture. They take up large tracts of land, and clusters of them can dominate communities in places like Northern Virginia.

No single decision at the federal, regional, or state levels can determine the environmental impact of data centers. Multiple factors are in play with trade-offs among them: business interests, construction jobs, maintenance jobs, economic competition across the globe, local economic development, electricity generation and consumption, electricity rates (individual consumer vs. data center vs. industrial), electric grid reliability, water consumption, as well as water, air, and light pollution. The players are huge corporations, state and local governments, citizens groups, public service commissions (where they exist), power companies—and the public.

Adverse Impacts on Climate Change

From 2018 to 2024 data center carbon emissions tripled! At current rate of AI growth, by 2030 an additional 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide will be emitted. Despite pledges of giants like Google and Meta to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030, their zeal to beat each other in the AI race may make that goal impossible.

Depletion of Water and Land

Hyperscale data centers can demand as much as five million gallons per day for cooling – the equivalent of the water used by a city of 50,000 people. They also gobble up massive tracts of land with arable topsoil. The largest hyperscale centers can occupy areas the size of 17 football fields. Increasingly they are placed in rural areas where their stormwater runoff threatens remaining farms, and their thirst for water dries up local wells.

Google's data center in The Dalles, Oregon

A Vital Question:

Even as data centers place enormous stress on what might be considered common goods and public services, to what degree will these centers benefit the public? This question will be answered in different ways and under different conditions for almost every data center proposed or under construction.

CALLS TO ACTION

Join us in seeking more transparency from the big tech companies and their subsidiaries that own, run, and plan these data centers across the United States. A growing number of federal, state and local leaders are now calling for information about the environmental and health costs of these centers. Join them, environmental groups, and your fellow citizens in demanding answers and accountability, especially if a data center exists or is planned near you!

• Find out about data centers that are near you. This map shows data centers across the US. This website gives information about the size of data centers near you.

• Inform yourself about the environmental and health hazards that data centers pose to your community and to citizens in other states. Think tanks like Brookings, media like The New York Times, and environmental non-profits like the National Wildlife Federation follow the impact of data centers.

• Urge elected officials to press for transparency from tech companies, real estate firms, and government executives about the environmental and health costs of data centers. Tell your Representative and Senators to join their colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are questioning the unbridled spread of data centers.

o Here is the link to the offices of your House members

o Here is the link to the offices of your Senators

• Pay attention to city and town council meetings and zoning board hearings to learn if a data center is planned near you. Attend public meetings and raise questions. If your state has a public utilities or public services commission (or equivalent), what role does it play? Is it doing its job to protect and promote the public interest?

Large-scale data centers are here to stay. We must understand their impact on our environments and determine how to control possible negative impacts on our communities and lives.

The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group plans to release announcements about critical issues and opportunities for anyone concerned to support scientific integrity and environmental protection. We hope to organize an open meeting soon to discuss our role in addressing the environment, biodiversity loss, and climate change. If you are a member of HR73 and want to join our efforts, please email John Kress at KRESSJ@si.edu.

ClassACTion Alert 6: Stop the Further Dismantling of our Environmental Protections

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:58:32 GMT

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BACKGROUND:

Overview

In eleven months since he was inaugurated, Donald Trump and his Administration have beat a path to undo over 50 years of environmental law originally established not only to protect nature, but to protect the citizens of the United States and the world. Until now, American presidents, working with Congress, have strived to build a strong national system to protect habitats, to conserve species, to restrict soil, air, and water pollution, to regulate pesticides, and to reduce greenhouse gases in order to slow climate change. Every one of these safeguards to protect our environment and to better our lives is now under serious threat.

Early Actions of this Administration

Among the many early actions of this Administration were, first, halting the National Nature Assessment by the US Global Change Research Program, a major effort to assess where we are in terms of protecting nature. Fortunately, this effort is now being pushed forward by independent researchers. Second, Trump’s EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, immediately announced his intention to rescind dozens of regulations protecting public health and the environment and claimed that EPA’s mission was now to "lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business." Third, the Trump Administration has been trying to render the Endangered Species Act impotent by redefining the meaning of "harm” done to a species such that destroying the habitat of that species would not constitute harm. And, finally, among these early actions, the "Big, Beautiful Bill" eliminated many protections set by the previous administration through the Inflation Reduction Act. These destructive activities have not stopped. The Administration has fired many scientists working in government research; others are silenced and their funding restricted. This is a partial list of early actions. Many others could be cited, such as canceling the National Climate Assessment or the removal of scientific information from government websites.

More Recent Actions

We have witnessed during the past month another wave of rollbacks of federal environmental protections. Through coordinated actions by the Department of the Interior and its Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency, sweeping changes are proposed to the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and restrictions on oil and gas drilling in US coastal waters (see NYTimes - In One Week, Trump Moves to Reshape U.S. Environmental Policy and The Guardian - Trump officials reveal plan to roll back regulations in Endangered Species Act). These tectonic changes, driven by what are claimed as economic factors rather than by the best available science, will cause irreparable harm to water quality, to the protection of both endangered and threatened species, and to our marine ecosystems. In the long run these changes will damage economic health. Even as the Administration announced these changes, it was boycotting the United Nations Climate COP30 held in Belem, Brazil. While such changes could take many months, all our efforts should be concentrated to halt any forward movement of them now.

Calls to Action

Endangered Species Act

The earlier Trump proposal to remove protection of critical habitat regulated under the Endangered Species Act, addressed in our April Action Alert, has not been finalized. But in November the agencies proposed four new revisions under this law. These proposals claim disingenuously to “clarify” the Endangered Species Act. Instead, they would essentially disable the statute from fulfilling the intentions of Congress, intentions well served by lawful enforcement of this act for over 50 years. The new proposals will 1) enhance the likelihood that threatened species will become extinct before they even attain “endangered” status; 2) fail to protect endangered species from fatal consequences of past habitat destruction; 3) permit fast-track approvals of destructive projects without adequate consideration of consequences for endangered and threatened species; and 4) erode the law’s scientific foundations by prioritizing commercial gain over scientific fact in decisions about species' survival. For a brief on the impact of these proposals on some specific species, see Analysis: Seven Animals Jeopardized by Trump Plan to Ax Endangered Species Act.

Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act has sought to restore and protect the health of our nation's rivers, lakes and wetlands for over 50 years. Agency regulations as well as court decisions since the birth of the Act have tended to follow the indisputable science that wetlands - both with surface connections to other waterways and those with subterranean connections - can profoundly impact those waterways when filled and/or polluted. The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA sharply narrowed the scope of “waters of the United States” subject to federal protection, requiring rivers to be navigable in the 19th Century sense and requiring tributary streams to have relatively permanent flows. Now EPA’s proposed definition of “waters of the United States” would, among other things, require wetlands adjacent to rivers to have standing surface water throughout the wet season, excluding from federal protection millions of acres of wetlands throughout the US that have saturated soils and groundwater connections with adjacent streams. It would also exclude interstate waters (rivers and lakes that straddle state lines) from protection unless they otherwise meet the definition of navigable waters. The new definitions, combined with the Supreme Court’s restrictive ruling in Sackett, would leave protection of a majority of the nations’ rivers and wetlands solely to the states, many of which do not protect such waters under state law. Currently, 24 out of 50 states rely on federal protections for clean water enforcement of wetlands and streams. If this proposed rule becomes finalized, close to 80% of wetlands and over 5 million miles of streams would lose their protected status. (see EPA Rule Further Slashes Clean Water Act Protections for Streams, Wetlands; also Trump Proposal Will Dismantle Wetlands Protections, Increase Flood Risk).

What We Must Do Now:

Urge classmates and colleagues to oppose the Trump Administration’s dismantling of environmental protection by:

1) Submitting comments to the Federal Register in opposition to the November 2025 proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act by the 22 December 2025 deadline.

For background and guidance on submitting your comment, see Trump’s Latest Attack on Endangered Species Act Threatens Biodiversity;
you can submit your own comment directly here.

2) Submitting comments to the Federal Register in opposition to the November 2025 proposed amendments to the Clean Water Act by the 5 January 2026 deadline.

For background and guidance on submitting your comment see:

to sign on to an organizational comment
to write and submit your own comment

3) Encouraging others to submit comments and speak out on these latest attacks on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and lifting restrictions on oil and gas drilling in US coastal waters; and

4) Contacting your members of Congress (Senators and Representatives) to express opposition to these recent proposed changes and Executive Orders.

Alert 5: Speak out for NSF, EPA, NIH and NOAA Courageous Federal Scientists

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:19:09 GMT

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People on Feb. 18 protested the US government’s mass firings of federal employees. The recent National Science Foundation firings are the first of several the agency has planned.

Credit: Michael Nigro/Sipa USA via AP

BACKGROUND:

We of the ClassACT HR73 Environment and Climate Change Working Group offer our support to the scientists and employees in federal agencies, most recently the National Science Foundation (NSF), who protest devastating cuts to staff and funding as well as new policies that sidestep the scientific review process. We join with those scientists in warning that the ongoing destruction of these invaluable centers of research will harm the U.S. environment, economic dominance, and national security for decades to come.

We urge you to join us in backing these scientists at key government research institutions. Thousands have lost not only their livelihoods but also projects and laboratories that ultimately serve us all. In response nearly 1200 scientists and other employees at the NSF, the National Institutes for Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have signed letters protesting the cuts and policy changes that are crippling their agencies and undermining scientific integrity. For many, like the 144 EPA employees suspended for signing that critical letter, the personal costs have been great.

At the NSF alone since January more than 1600 active grants have been terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and approximately $2.2 billion of the NSF’s 2025 fiscal budget of $9 billion has been withheld by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Trump administration’s FY2026 proposal submitted to Congress in May promises to slash NSF’s budget by 56 percent, with biological sciences, engineering and STEM education taking the hardest hits. Since April more than 1200 NIH employees have been fired, and this global leader in fighting disease has suffered more than $2.4 billion in cancelled and frozen grants and contracts. The proposed legislation will result in an additional 37 percent cut to the agency.

One promising sign that these drastic cuts to science can still be blunted during Congress’s current appropriation process occurred on July 24. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 26-2 to approve an FY2026 EPA spending plan that is only 5 percent less than the previous fiscal year’s EPA budget. In contrast, the Trump administration wants to cut the environmental agency’s budget by 55 percent. The Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Susan Collins (R- Me.), also voted to preserve the EPA’s Office of Research and Development as well as to fully fund the agency’s Office of Atmospheric Programs, essential to responding to climate change. Two days earlier, however, the House Appropriations Committee had voted 33 to 28 for a 23 percent cut for their version of an EPA FY2026 spending plan.

The impact of all these cuts extends far beyond shuttered government labs in Bethesda, MD or offices in Alexandria, VA. Scientists working across the nation and the globe rely on grants from the NSF, the NIH and other agencies to conduct vital research on projects, such as cancer drugs, climate change, biodiversity protection, and telescopes that see beyond our galaxy. Scientists connected to America’s great university system carry out this work in conference rooms in both red and blue states, in international research stations in Antarctica, or on the shores of Maine. As these drastic cuts take hold, the very existence of America’s university system – the envy of other nations – is threatened. At the top of the list of endangered universities is Harvard, which has had at least $148.1 million in NSF grants cut. Harvard’s loss is ten percent of the agency’s total cancellations.

Experts fear that this unprecedented assault on science will drive talented researchers to find work in other countries, such as Australia, France, Canada and China who are now courting them. Senior researchers worry about losing a whole generation of young scientists in the U.S. because the fellowships and grants they depend on at the start of their careers have evaporated. And scientists warn that the nexus of public and private research that has fueled decades of U.S. innovation and economic growth as well as scientific advances can easily disappear in a very short time.

CALLS TO ACTION

To stand in solidarity with scientists inside and outside the US government whose work is threatened by these cuts, we of ClassACT HR73’s Environment and Climate Change Working Group urge the following actions:

Ask our representatives and senators in Washington to help preserve funding for NSF, NIH, EPA, and other government scientific agencies in the FY26 budget.
- Here is the link to the telephone numbers of House of Representative members
- Here is the link to the phone numbers of all one hundred U.S. Senators

Attend town halls sponsored by our representatives and senators when they return home during the August recess. Raise concerns about the severity of cuts and their impact.

Express our solidarity with government scientists and our worries about threats to their agencies through social media posts. Alert friends who are unaware of the scale and meaning of these cuts.

If you are a scientist and/or physician, write letters of support for government scientists and research agencies to the editors of peer-reviewed journals. Sponsor resolutions and urge our professional organizations to protest these cuts to agencies like NSF and NIH.

Write op-ed pieces for local newspapers and publications that can inform a general audience about what the costs of these cuts to staffing and funding will mean for us all.

Spread the word and accelerate our efforts by sharing this ClassACTion Alert to five or more people and/or post it on your social media platforms.
- The link to the shareable pdf
- The link to the alert on our website

OTHER RESOURCES & OPINION:

“Amid Fear of Retaliation, N.S.F. Workers Sign Letter of Dissent,” New York Times, July 22, 2025

“16 States Sue Trump over $1.4 Billion in Science Cuts” New York Times, May 28, 2025

“Employees’ protests against Trump science policies spread to NSF” Science, July 22, 2025

“Trump’s ‘Gold Standard’ for Science Manufactures Doubt” The Atlantic, July 20, 2025

“The Mystery of Trump’s Science Cuts” Politico, May 22, 2025

“ ‘A disaster for all of us’: US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts” The Guardian, July 20, 2025

“How Trump's budget cuts could affect 2 iconic space telescopes: Hubble and James Webb” Space.com, July 8, 2025

“Q&A: A feared return to the “dark ages of science” seen in EPA’s dismantling of research unit” The New Lede, July 21, 2025

“Why the federal government is making climate data disappear” Grist, July 14, 2025

Alert 4: Time to Act in Support of the Environment: Speak out for Affordable Energy, Our Clean Energy Future, and American Jobs!

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 18:35:26 GMT

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BACKGROUND:

The President’s One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), which narrowly passed the House on May 22 and is currently being negotiated for approval by the Senate, contains much to be condemned. We call your attention here to its attempt to repeal much of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to advance clean energy through tax incentives, rebates and grants. The $369 billion contained in the IRA for this purpose was the largest legislated investment in tackling climate change in history. Key provisions for consumers included $9 billion in consumer home energy rebate programs; 10 years of consumer tax credits to make homes energy efficient and run on clean energy; consumer tax credits for lower/middle income individuals to buy used ($4,000) or new ($7,500) clean vehicles; and a $1 billion grant program to make affordable housing more energy efficient. Even West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin when interviewed by the Wall Street Journal said he didn’t regret voting for the IRA, calling it “the most transformative bill” passed since he had been a lawmaker.

Photo via Center for American Progress

The BBB now essentially repeals the IRA’s clean energy and jobs creation benefits with devastating effects on ongoing and planned projects, energy costs to consumers, and greenhouse gas emissions. The BBB is projected to raise consumer electric rates and to reduce job creation. The G.O.P. plan is to have it on the President’s desk for signature on July 4th. We urge you to communicate with your representatives in Congress as soon as possible to oppose the BBB’s repeal of the IRA's promise that the United States can and will be a global leader in the clean energy revolution.

WHAT WE MUST DO NOW:

1) Contact your senators. Ask them to oppose the following provisions of the BBB: Subtitle C of the bill, titled “Make America Win Again,” which proposes to sunset, repeal, or restrict nearly every major clean energy tax credit under the IRA, including credits for clean vehicle purchases (Section 25E), commercial clean vehicles (Section 45W), alternative refueling infrastructure (Section 30C), residential energy efficiency improvements (Sections 25C and 25D), new energy efficient homes (Section 45L), and advanced manufacturing (Section 45X). For U.S. manufacturing, the most damaging proposals are those that target the clean electricity production and investment credits under Sections 45Y and 48E, and the advanced manufacturing production credit under Section 45X. Our senators must know that we care about the economic impact of this repeal in our states and our nation.

2) Contact your representatives in the House. If they voted against the BBB, thank them. Any change to the text in the Senate will send the bill back to the House for reconsideration and vote. If they are one of the 21 members of the House Republican Conference who wrote to the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on March 9 opposing the proposed changes to renewable energy tax credits but ultimately voted for the BBB, then tell them to stick to their values and insights they expressed in March and vote against the new bill.

3) Crimson Challenge. Spread the word and accelerate our efforts by forwarding this ClassACTion Alert to five or more people and/or post it on your social media platforms.

OTHER RESOURCES & OPINIONS:

Bill McKibben (fellow alumnus), “A truly dark day in DC,” 22 May 2025: “If you add it up, this is all an effort to keep America precisely where it is now. It’s the Make America Immobile Act."

Paul Krugman (winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics), “We are no longer a serious country,” June 3, 2025: “Then there’s the budget bill making its way through Congress. It’s a terrible thing, imposing savage cuts on social programs (and decimating U.S. science) while giving such big tax cuts to the wealthy that it will explode the deficit.”

Evergreen Action, “Rapid Analysis: House GOP’s Clean Energy Repeal and What it Means for the Affordability Crisis:” “This extreme bill not only makes devastating cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, but also guts clean energy, climate, and environmental justice programs that are reducing costs, creating jobs, and improving public health across the country.”

Princeton ZERO Lab Report, “A Fork In The Road: Impacts of Federal Policy Repeal On The U.S. Energy Transition,” May 22, 2025, on BBB’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions, costs of energy in the U.S., overall and per household through 2035, and in killing off emerging alternative energy sectors.

This resource, courtesy of Climate Reality, profiles key senators in the 13 "swing states" and the impact of the IRA incentives by specific projects. Check this out if you live in one of those states.

Other resources tracking clean energy projects and impacts of funding freezes state by state:

Alert 3: The Endangered Species Act is Endangered!

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 18:31:07 GMT

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Background.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. It passed the Senate on July 24, 1973, with a vote of 92-0. The House approved the bill on September 18, 1973, with a vote of 390-12. The website of the EPA as of April 17, 2025 summarizes the law as follows: “The Endangered Species Act (ESA) provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found. The law requires federal agencies, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and/or the NOAA Fisheries Service, to ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species. The law also prohibits any action that causes a ‘taking’ of any listed species of endangered fish or wildlife. Likewise, import, export, interstate, and foreign commerce of listed species are all generally prohibited.” The text of the statute states that “The term "take" means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.”

In the 1995 Supreme Court decision of Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, timber industry interests challenged an Interior Department regulation defining “harm” to include "significant habitat modification or degradation [that] actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering." In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court upheld the definition: "Given Congress' clear expression of the ESA's broad purpose to protect endangered and threatened wildlife, the Secretary's definition of harm' is reasonable. First, an ordinary understanding of the word ‘harm’ supports it. The dictionary definition of the verb form of ‘harm’ is ‘to cause hurt or damage to: injure.’ …In the context of the ESA, that definition naturally encompasses habitat modification that results in actual injury or death to members of an endangered or threatened species. Respondents argued that the Secretary should have limited the purview of ‘harm’ to direct applications of force against protected species, but the dictionary definition does not include the word ‘directly’ or suggest in any way that only direct or willful action that leads to injury constitutes ‘harm.’ …. Second, the broad purpose of the ESA supports the Secretary's decision to extend protection against activities that cause the precise harms Congress enacted the statute to avoid. In TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153 (1978), we described the Act as 'the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation.' …As stated in § 2 of the Act, among its central purposes is "to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved .... " (515 U.S. at 697-698).

What is Happening.

On April 17 of this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the federal agencies charged with implementation of the Endangered Species Act, gave notice in the Federal Register of their intention to rescind their longstanding definition of the statutory term “harm.” Under the Trump administration, FWS and NMFS now propose to rescind their regulatory definition of “harm” because, they assert, it is contrary to the “single, best meaning” of the statute. Although no replacement definition of the term “harm” is proposed, they quote extensively from Justice Scalia’s 1995 dissent in Sweet Home, which argued that the term “take” has long been understood in wildlife law to mean only the intentional hunting or capture of animals. The majority of the Court rejected Justice Scalia’s contention, pointing out that Congress intentionally included the broad term “harm” in the statutory definition of “take,” and that the action proposed by the dissent would make that term effectively meaningless and be inconsistent with the purpose of the ESA.

The obvious intent of the Trump administration’s proposal to rescind the Services’ longstanding definition of “harm” is to facilitate development. As the Supreme Court noted in rejecting the timber industry’s position in Sweet Home, interpreting the Act as only reaching direct and intentional conduct to capture or kill an endangered species would allow a developer to drain a pond in which an endangered turtle lives, knowing that the act would extinguish an endangered species of turtles, “unless the developer was motivated by a desire ‘to get at a turtle.’”

FWS and NMFS are only accepting public comment on their proposed rescission of the regulatory definition of “harm” for 30 days, until May 19, 2025. Protecting imperiled species against destruction and fragmentation of their habitat is essential to conserve biological diversity. Professor E. O. Wilson once said, “I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”

More information on the attack on the ESA is available here:

What we must do now: We urge classmates and colleagues to oppose the Trump administration’s abandonment of protection of species’ habitat by: 1) submitting comments on the Federal Register by the May 19, 2025 deadline;

2) encouraging others (including local land trusts and state environmental organizations) to submit comments and speak out on this attack on the core of the Endangered Species Act;

3) contacting your members of Congress to express opposition to this proposal.

Alert 2: The Environmental Protection Agency Under Attack

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 18:04:40 GMT

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established over a half-century ago by President Richard M. Nixon, who stated in 1970: “It …has become increasingly clear that only by reorganizing our Federal efforts can we … effectively ensure the protection, development and enhancement of the total environment itself ... In organizational terms, this requires pulling together into one agency a variety of research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities now scattered through several departments and agencies. It also requires that the new agency include sufficient support elements--in research and in aids to State and local anti-pollution programs, for example--to give it the needed strength and potential for carrying out its mission.” (full document available upon request). William D. Ruckelshaus, the first Administrator of EPA, confirmed that the Agency has "the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment" and set its course to focus on research, standards, and enforcement of this goal. Congressional enactments of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Toxics Substances Control Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and subsequent amendments to those laws provide specific authorization to the EPA to carry out its mission. With the increased impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss in the 21st Century, these objectives could not be more compelling.

Over the past several weeks, the Donald Trump Administration has made every attempt to reset the course of EPA. The new Administrator of the Agency, Lee Zeldin, has redefined the purpose from enhancing the total environment and public health to "lower(ing) the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business." In order to succeed in this reversal of the role of the EPA, the administration will likely attempt to repeal or significantly weaken dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on air and water pollution, restrictions on greenhouse gases, safeguards of wetlands, identification and protection of threatened and endangered species, regulation of pesticides and other toxics in the environment and in consumer products, assessment of the environmental impacts of major federal actions, and oversight of hazardous waste disposal and cleanup. One of their primary targets is to revise the 2009 EPA "endangerment finding," which established that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. If this action succeeds, it will stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases and ensure the catastrophic consequences of climate change now well-established by science.

The Administration is also attempting to freeze funds for Congressionally approved climate programs, which have supported the transition away from fossil fuels, and has begun the process of firing a large portion of EPA staff, which would decimate the Officeof Research and Development, the primary scientific arm of the Agency. All these actions are threatened, but many have not been finalized. Significant legal hurdles remain in order to repeal or revise these regulations. Lawsuits have been brought on efforts to reduce agency staff and more are likely. Yet even if a temporary restraining order stops these firings, damage will be done and some expertise will be permanently lost. We cannot wait to act.

More information on recent attacks on the EPA is available here:

What You Can Do:

Now is the time for all of us to express our concern about the dismantling of the EPA and the suppression of sound science regarding the environment, pollution, climate change, and public health.

We urge our classmates and colleagues to write to their members of Congress to express opposition to all attacks on the environment and especially the unauthorized effort to critically weaken the EPA and to illegally rewrite its mission. Numerous threats have been launched by Trump and Zeldin, but there is still time to prevent the worst from happening. Many environmental organizations are leading efforts to defend the EPA in Congress, in the courts, and in public discourse.

Without specifically endorsing all the work of any one organization we urge everyone to support these NGOs. Several leading advocates for the EPA are the:

NRDC
Conservation Law Foundation
Sierra Club
Earthjustice
Environmental Integrity Project
The Nature Conservancy
Union of Concerned Scientists
American Association for the Advancement of Science

The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group plans to release announcements about critical issues and opportunities for anyone concerned to support scientific integrity and environmental protection. We hope to organize an open meeting soon to discuss our role in addressing the environment, biodiversity loss, and climate change. If you are a member of HR73 and want to join our efforts, please email John Kress at KRESSJ@si.edu.

Alert 1: To All Everyone Concerned about the Environment, Biodiversity Protection, and the Impacts of Climate Change

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 17:57:28 GMT

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Critical environmental protections have recently come under attack and will continue to be assaulted by the Trump Administration and/or in Congress in coming months. The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group has identified two pressing issues where we and our classmates can defend the integrity of science and the laws addressing climate change, biodiversity, and environmental protection. We describe opportunities for concerned individuals to engage. These issues are in flux, so we plan to update this memo periodically.

Environmental impact assessment. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a landmark law (1970) that requires federal agencies to consider and disclose to the public the impacts of their proposed actions on the environment. At the direction of President Trump, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has rescinded the longstanding regulations that guide federal agencies in conducting such environmental assessments. CEQ asserts that President Trump’s revocation of a decades-old executive order leaves it without authority to issue binding regulations. Even if that is so, it will be critically important for CEQ to fill the gap left by the rescission of its regulations. CEQ should issue guidance for federal agencies to ensure that agencies conduct thorough and responsible analysis of the environmental impacts of their actions, including cumulative and indirect effects and impacts on communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms, and provide broad opportunities for public involvement. The intent of NEPA must be carried forward. People should submit comments of concern as individuals or as groups to CEQ by March 27, 2025 at the Federal eRulemaking Portal, https://www.regulations.gov/, or by mail to the Council on Environmental Quality, 730 Jackson Place NW, Washington D.C. 20503. All submissions must include the name, “Council on Environmental Quality,” and docket number, CEQ-2025- 0002. Do not submit any private information.

We anticipate further attacks on the integrity of environmental impact assessments under NEPA by this Administration or in Congress, particularly with regards to federal energy development.

Additional information on NEPA is on the EarthJustice website.
Biodiversity protection and climate change. As part of President Trump’s broad rejection of national and international efforts to address the impact and mitigation of climate change, he has prohibited the U.S. Global Change Research Program (established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate research into the forces driving global change) from publishing and seeking public comment on its nearly completed National Nature Assessment. The purpose of the Nature Assessment is to take stock of U.S. lands, waters, wildlife, and the benefits they provide to our economy, health, climate, and national security and to look ahead at how changes in nature, including climate change, may affect our economy and our lives. The majority of the authors of the report come from outside of government, including academia, non-profit groups, and the private sector. The future of the nearly completed National Nature Assessment through the U.S. Global Change Research Program is uncertain. We therefore advocate the release of this critical report to the public as soon as possible as an independent publication. People concerned about the suppression of sound science regarding climate change by the current administration should write to their members of Congress to urge them to ensure the completion and release of the National Nature Assessment.

We anticipate further attacks on national climate policies and on protections for biodiversity, including particularly attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act, in this Administration or in Congress.

Additional information is in the NYTimes article “Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.”

The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group hopes regularly to release announcements about these issues and the opportunities for classmates to support scientific integrity and environmental protection. Many environmental organizations are already leading efforts to defend our nation’s air, water, wildlife, and public lands in Congress, in the courts, and in public discourse. Without specifically endorsing all the work of any one organization we urge everyone to directly support these NGOs in any way they can. Among leading advocates on the issues we have flagged here, two have already mounted litigation in specific cases.

EarthJustice is a national public interest law firm that represents environmental groups and communities in challenging governmental actions that violate environmental laws [see https://earthjustice.org/feature/trump-environment-100-day; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/climate/alaska-lawsuit-trump-offshore-drilling.html].

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a national environmental organization that combines legal and scientific expertise to advocate the protection of the natural environment and of clean air, water, and land. [see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/climate/agriculture-farmer-website-data-lawsuit.html]

We will be organizing an open meeting soon to discuss these issues and related ones on the environment and climate change. Everyone is invited to attend.

- 10 March 2025

ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change ClassACTion Alerts

ClassACTion Alert 7: Stop the Environmental Harm Caused by Data Centers

Table of Contents:

Overview

What is Happening Today

Adverse Impacts on Climate Change

Depletion of Water and Land

A Vital Question:

CALLS TO ACTION

ClassACTion Alert 6: Stop the Further Dismantling of our Environmental Protections

BACKGROUND:

Overview

Early Actions of this Administration

More Recent Actions

Calls to Action

Endangered Species Act

Clean Water Act

What We Must Do Now:

Alert 5: Speak out for NSF, EPA, NIH and NOAA Courageous Federal Scientists

BACKGROUND:

CALLS TO ACTION

OTHER RESOURCES & OPINION:

Alert 4: Time to Act in Support of the Environment: Speak out for Affordable Energy, Our Clean Energy Future, and American Jobs!

BACKGROUND:

WHAT WE MUST DO NOW:

OTHER RESOURCES & OPINIONS:

Alert 3: The Endangered Species Act is Endangered!

Background.

What is Happening.

Alert 2: The Environmental Protection Agency Under Attack

Alert 1: To All Everyone Concerned about the Environment, Biodiversity Protection, and the Impacts of Climate Change