SELC’s Federal Regulatory Director: A healthy democracy is crucial for a healthy environment

Liz Zepeda wasn’t sure if the Forest Service employees would accept the 6,000 comments that she and her coworkers had printed out, loaded in a wagon, and walked across the National Mall.

But she was going to try anyway. The administration had recently shut down a tool that would allow public feedback on rules to be delivered electronically, and the deadline for comments to protect the Roadless Rule was coming up soon.

After a few minutes she came out of the office and gave her team a thumbs up. The comments were accepted.  

This was far from a normal day for Zepeda, SELC’s Federal Regulatory Director, who usually spends her time tracking federal regulations and how the Trump administration has tried to make it harder for the public to have a say in what agencies like the Forest Service are doing. And there are some concerning trends she’s seen in her work. Across the federal government, agencies are rushing to repeal public protections based on bad science, questionable analysis, and illegal shortcuts.  

But it’s also an example where SELC is helping make sure that voices across the South are being heard in Washington. And why continuing to push back is so important. In this conversation, Zepeda shares some of the patterns she’s seen since the start of Trump’s second term.

What is your background and role at SELC? 

I worked for the federal government at the Department of Housing and Urban Development for almost 12 years, mostly focused on environmental regulations like the National Environmental Policy Act in the context of affordable housing and disaster recovery.   

At SELC I spend a lot of my days digging through the federal website that tracks the progress of all kinds of environmental rules and procedural changes to identify what could impact our work. I help our attorneys craft public comments on those rules and understand what they mean for our clients and partners across the South.   

Why do federal regulations matter to the environment? 

The federal government started getting serious about writing rules on environmental protection at a time when pollution was a huge, unavoidable issue. People were getting sick from so much industrial waste in the air and water that you could see and smell it. And we started to understand how chemicals in the environment hurt us and other plants and animals.   

The Environmental Protection Agency was created by President Nixon in 1970, not long after a river in Ohio caught on fire because it was so contaminated. Around the country, people could see and feel how pollution was spoiling their air and land. 

Today’s debate tends to forget that our major environmental laws – like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act – were created because we demanded that the government protect people and the environment from harm.  

These laws have been extremely successful – so much so that today we take them for granted. But there is still pollution lurking and threatening our health, and the health of the environment. 

We know that people across the South and the country still want clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment for the future. They don’t want the government to hand over the reins to industry and put all that progress at risk.   

How does federal policy impact communities in our region? 

The federal government creates policies that impact all parts of the country, even as states also create their own regulations, and local authorities make decisions.   

We’ve seen that play out in their push for more dirty energy and methane gas, allowing exemptions for facilities to pollute more to power data centers, and pushing to allow data centers to build their own pop-up power plants regardless of the effect on communities.    

Clean air and clean water protections are implemented by states but governed by federal laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. We’re already seeing the impacts where federal decisions to weaken protections, like limits on PFAS contamination in our drinking water, impact local communities in a very real way. 

Most importantly, federal policy sends a signal about what the country’s leadership cares about. And unfortunately, what we’re seeing under this administration is that agencies like EPA don’t care very much about public health or what Americans have to say. 

What is happening now that is so different from previous administrations? 

This administration has shown an unprecedented disdain for how our government is supposed to work. They’re ignoring the facts when they disagree with them, trying to cut the public out of the process, and ignoring the law when it’s in their way. 

When EPA announced the repeal of the endangerment finding, a critical decision that has allowed the federal government to regulate climate warming greenhouse gas emissions, they ignored decades of established climate science in favor of their own agenda. 

We’ve also seen this administration take steps to make it more difficult for Americans to comment on proposals before they take effect. Agencies like EPA are supposed to consider feedback – not just from regulated industries, but community organizations working on the ground, science and policy experts, and the general public – to ensure their decisions reach the best outcome for everyone. But this administration is ignoring that mandate.  

This administration doesn’t care if they take us back before decades of progress. They’re ignoring every guardrail and exploiting every flaw in the system to force through illegal, unscientific, and unpopular policies.   

Can they do that? 

SELC is deeply concerned that this administration shows a pattern of disregard for the law. We’ve seen them take all kinds of unlawful actions, from agencies canceling entire grant programs to failing to fully meet federal court orders. 

We also know the government hasn’t always worked for everyone. The system was designed by and for people in power, and we need to make changes so that everyone feels empowered to make their voices heard.  

But we believe that drastic rollbacks that put industry in the driver’s seat are the wrong answer. We want to see government work better for the people. 

What can we do about it? 

This administration is trying to break our government, and they think no one can stop them. 

The good news is that that’s harder to do than they think. SELC is taking this administration to court and engaging with agencies like EPA and members of Congress, so they know we’re ready to push back against these unprecedented attacks.   

They know they can’t win on the merits and the only way to force their policies through is to cheat, lie, break the law – that gives me hope. 

We know this because people across the South and the country are speaking up for clean air and water – things the federal government can and should regulate.   

The most important thing we can do is keep paying attention and let our elected officials know that we as Americans and Southerners want them to protect a government that works for us regardless of who’s in charge.