U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has halted all pending environmental litigation and reassigned 4 profession Justice Division attorneys centered on environmental points, according to a few sources accustomed to the matter and a pair of memos seen by Reuters on Friday.
The memos order the division to not file any new lawsuits or different authorized briefs and to halt all pending settlements and consent decrees to present the brand new Republican administration time to rethink beforehand agreed offers.
The change, one of many memos stated, is supposed to make sure the federal authorities “speaks with one voice in its view of the regulation and to make sure the president’s appointees or designees have the chance to resolve whether or not to provoke any new circumstances.”
The choice to maneuver the 4 officers, who aren’t political appointees, from overseeing the pure assets, environmental enforcement, appellate and environmental crimes sections is the most recent in a string of comparable actions as Trump shakes up the federal authorities’s 2.2 million-strong workforce.
The division’s Atmosphere and Pure Sources Division is liable for bringing felony and civil circumstances associated to air and water air pollution, animal welfare and public security, in addition to defending in court docket authorities businesses such because the Division of the Inside and the Division of Power.
The 4 part chiefs had been instructed in an electronic mail late Thursday they’ve 15 days to just accept the brand new project to a newly created Sanctuary Metropolis Working Group or face adversarial penalties, the sources instructed Reuters.
A Justice Division spokesperson declined to remark.
The sources had been granted anonymity as a result of they aren’t approved to talk to the media. The sources stated the reassigned officers haven’t been offered additional particulars about their new assignments.
Trump has lengthy dismissed local weather change as a “hoax,” vowed to chop regulation and on his first day in workplace withdrew the U.S. from the Paris local weather treaty.
4 different Justice Division staff who labored on environmental justice points had been additionally positioned on paid administrative go away this week, 4 sources accustomed to the matter stated.
The 4 officers positioned on go away embrace Cynthia Ferguson, who led the environmental justice workplace, and Lana Pettus, a prosecutor who labored on some high-profile circumstances such because the 2015 felony Clear Water Act case towards Duke Power.
The Trump administration this week ordered anybody within the federal authorities on variety, fairness and inclusion points to be positioned on go away, and in addition referred to as for the elimination of any workplace or place involving environmental justice.
Ferguson and Pettus couldn’t be instantly reached for remark.
The order to freeze all pending environmental regulation was issued to staff on Thursday morning, the sources stated.
It’s much like one other memo issued earlier within the week to the Civil Rights Division which additionally halted all litigation, together with efforts to finalize court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville to handle civil rights abuses by the police.
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