A legal pillar of environmental justice is now under attack
A few weeks ago, the Army Corps of Engineers made a startling announcement: It would give Sharon Lavigne and her neighbors in St. James Parish, La., a chance to tell their stories. The fact one of the world’s largest chemical companies has fought for years to keep Lavigne quiet tells you how commanding her stories are. Those stories may stop this particular company from building a multi-billion dollar chemical plant surrounding her neighborhood.
For this, we can thank a simple law, signed by President Nixon in 1970, called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Unlike other environmental laws, NEPA doesn’t tell agencies what choices they must make — like where to erect a levee or whether to permit a plastics plant. But it does insist their choices be informed. So, before the Army Corps can approve a company’s wetlands development permit it has to study whatever effects that chemical plant might have on the health of people in that community and on the properties they own.
One critical way that agencies like the Army Corp learn about such effects is by giving people — particularly local residents a chance to share their concerns in their own words. You don’t need a degree in law or chemistry to have a say, although sometimes it takes a dose of courage. It’s not easy to speak or write publicly about having to cook with tainted tap water, visiting with neighbors on a foul-smelling porch, or dreading some rare cancer that’s been associated with your zip code. As far as NEPA is concerned, those stories are just as important as ones that global chemical companies have to tell.
As Lavigne and her neighbors are now demonstrating, a decision-making process can be a powerful thing, particularly when it levels the playing field between ordinary people and the most powerful companies on earth. St. James Parish is located in an area known as “Cancer Alley” due to the more than 200 petrochemical facilities located there. Like other communities in the region, St. James is composed predominantly of the working poor and people of color. When a chemical giant sought to build yet another polluting facility, Lavigne founded RISE St. James to help organize her neighbors in opposition. By recognizing the significance of their stories, NEPA is boosting these efforts.
Read more: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/570320-a-half-century-old-environmental-justice-bill-is-under-attack
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Not that this absolves him of anything since we know now that he conducted secret negotiations to thwart LBJ's promising peace talks with the Vietnamese, persuading them that they'd get a better deal from a Nixon administration, which also led to a Democratic defeat in the 1968 election. Meanwhile, thousands more died in the continuing war in the next seven years. But I still believe that history will judge TFG to be much, much worse. I cannot think of any redeeming thing that he ever did. 
And I still remember where I was when I heard that LBJ died. I was at school in the cafeteria leaning into the freezer getting ice cream when I heard some fellow students behind me talking about it. I stood up so fast that I almost hit my head. Knowing how he felt about the war, it's likely that it took years off his life. 
Nixon's role, along with a cooperative Congress, in our environmental laws in many of my presentations when I was doing that. I despised the guy but he did sign a bunch of good Bills into law including his changes to federal Indian policies of the time. But then again, there's a duality in that Alcatraz and Wounded Knee both took place during his administration too.
Environmental news often takes a backseat to the catastrophe of the week.
