Trump administration’s power grab is an attack on the public’s voice

One of the basic principles of this country is that when a person or corporation breaks the law, they should be held accountable. This right is enshrined in our bedrock environmental laws, which give people harmed by illegal pollution the ability to bring lawsuits — known as citizen suits — against polluters for violating the law when the government fails to act. Citizen suits are a key backstop for communities looking to protect themselves from unlawful pollution.

But now the Trump administration — in an effort to take power away from local communities, courts, and Congress — is launching an attack on this very right.

In a court filing defending xAI, an AI company founded by Elon Musk, from a Clean Air Act citizen suit brought by the NAACP, SELC, and Earthjustice, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that companies can be allowed to break the law solely because the Trump administration says so. The claim contradicts decades of well-established legal precedent and looks to pave the way for well-connected corporations to pump out illegal pollution without consequences.  

What are citizen suits? 

Citizen suits are a key part of several important environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act. They are often a last resort for communities when government regulators have failed to hold polluters accountable for violating the law.  

Citizen suit provisions were added to those laws with bipartisan support in the 1970s, with members of Congress from both sides of the aisle seeing their importance in protecting public health and the environment.

Over the last five decades, citizen suits have been used to better protect communities from illegal pollution all across the country:  

• After SELC and our partners filed a Clean Water Act citizen suit against a major textile mill in North Georgia, the mill committed to permanently stop using PFAS in its operations. The agreement will significantly lower the amount of PFAS — a chemical that has been linked to cancers, liver damage, and thyroid disease — in the water.
• When the people of Flint, Michigan, had their drinking water contaminated with lead poisoning, communities were able to sue the city and the state of Michigan for their failure to properly treat drinking water. The lawsuit led to a groundbreaking settlement, requiring the state to invest millions of dollars in programs to remove lead pipes and install drinking water monitors that can better protect families in the area.  
• A Clean Air Act citizen suit held a steel company accountable for chronic, uncontrolled air pollution that put communities near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at increased health risks. 

Unchecked air pollution in Memphis and North Mississippi 

The Trump administration’s attack on citizen suits comes as communities look to hold Elon Musk’s xAI accountable for its continued use of dozens of unpermitted methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center in Memphis. To meet the data center’s massive power needs, xAI installed and is operating 59 unpermitted turbines at a nearby site in Southaven, Mississippi — essentially building a de fact power plant without any permits in violation of the Clean Air Act. The NAACP, represented by SELC and Earthjustice, filed a Clean Air Act citizen suit against xAI in April.  

“xAI’s continued operation of these turbines without a permit and without adequate pollution controls is not only illegal, it’s an insult to families living nearby who for months have expressed serious concerns about how air pollution from the company’s personal power plant could impact their health and well-being,” SELC Senior Attorney Ben Grillot said.

The impact of xAI’s illegal power plant is huge: the facility is able to emit more than 5,300 tons of nitrogen oxides each year — five times the amount of NOx released from the Memphis International airport — making it one of the top emitters of the smog-forming pollutant in the country. It can also pump 433 tons of fine particulate matter and 47 tons of formaldehyde into nearby communities in Memphis and North Mississippi each year. These harmful pollutants are tied to increases in asthma, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, and cancer.

The Trump administration’s “unprecedented attack” 

In its filing, the Department of Justice never disputes that xAI is pumping out unlawful and harmful pollution into Memphis and North Mississippi. Instead, the Department argues that it doesn’t matter whether xAIis breaking the law and threatening community members’ health if the Trump Administration blesses the lawlessness. It claims the administration has an unreviewable right to come in and cancel community-led citizen suits at any time. This threatens to open the door to significant corruption as polluters pay, or give favors, to avoid complying with the law.

“With this filing, the Trump administration is launching an unprecedented attack on the public’s ability to defend themselves from illegal pollution. This is a blatant attempt to let well-connected corporations like xAI unlawfully pollute without any consequences, putting communities across the country at risk and threatening to open the door to large-scale pay-to-pollute corruption in the process,” SELC Litigation Director Kym Meyer said.

The right to citizen suits is well-established. Since being enshrined in the Clean Air Act and other laws starting in the 1970s, the constitutionality of citizen suits has been affirmed by courts on several occasions.  

“The Department of Justice’s frivolous arguments fly in the face of decades of well-established legal precedent and we look forward to fighting them in court,” Meyer added.