Trump wants the power to stop the public from suing polluters

AI 中文解读

核心亮点：特朗普政府试图剥夺普通公民起诉污染企业的法律权利，这可能让美国环保监管倒退数十年。通俗解读：美国过去很多环保法律里藏着一个“杀手锏”——如果政府不管污染问题，老百姓和环保组织可以直接去法院告那些排污企业。这条规定从70年代沿用至今，帮民众拦下过破坏生态的大坝工程，罚过石化巨头上千万美元。现在特朗普想要拿掉这个条款，等于把监督权从普通人手里夺走，全交给政府说了算，企业违规被追责的难度会大大增加。实际影响：对普通美国人来说，这意味着以后家门口的工厂要是偷偷排污，不能直接起诉了，得指望政府部门主动去查，而政府可能因为各种原因睁一只眼闭一只眼。空气和水质被污染后，普通人维权的门槛会提高，大企业违法成本降低，环境质量可能因此恶化。这项政策如果落实，等于把环境法的“牙齿”拔掉，让民众在保护自己健康时少了一件重要武器。

Reducing rampant pollution across the United States was so important that when Congress passed many environmental protection laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act, it didn’t want to leave enforcement only to the executive branch. Congress specifically wrote into those laws ways for citizens to enforce them through the courts when the government does not act to address the problem. Called “citizen suit provisions,” those parts of the laws allow regular people and advocacy groups to sue companies they believe are violating the law. Citizens can also sue federal agencies that fail to enforce the laws. Since the 1970s, those provisions have been used in over 2,000 lawsuits. In fact, a majority of environmental cases are citizen suit cases. Citizen suits have been used to halt the construction of dams to protect endangered species, end the injection of wastewater into groundwater, and secure US$14.2 million in civil penalties for illegal emissions from a petrochemical facility. In short, these cases have shaped modern environmental law.Read full article Comments