by Bayron J. Flores-Tapia, Fordham Environmental Law Review, Class of 2021

As President Trump’s administration continues to dismantle major environmental regulations, the United States Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program offers a glimmer of hope for environmental lawyers challenging the President’s many environmental rollbacks.

In Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, the Supreme Court examined whether President Trump’s administrative approach to abolishing the DACA program, which provides federal benefits and temporary protection from deportation to young immigrants who entered the United States, complied with the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). The Trump administration’s principal justification for abolishing the DACA program was that the program was not authorized by law, which is the same explanation that the Trump administration has repeatedly used to repeal Obama-era environmental laws. The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s decision to rescind DACA was “arbitrary and capricious” under the APA as the Trump administration failed to adequately explain its action and consider the impact the rescission would have on DACA recipients.

“This decision has profound implications for administrative law and thus environmental law” – Bob Percival, director of the University of Maryland’s environmental law program.

Although the DACA decision did not involve an environmental regulation, the Supreme Court’s ruling has set forth a precedent that many environmental lawyers may use to combat President Trump’s environmental cutbacks. Dave Owen, an environmental and administrative law professor at UC Hastings, stated that the DACA decision seems to suggest that “agencies have to explain the things they do, and changes have to be grounded in evidence.” In other words, President Trump’s administration must articulate how the public benefits of its decisions outweigh the possible unfavorable impacts, an approach that the administration has failed to adopt. For example, when the Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan, a climate change policy that limited carbon pollution from power plants, it failed to explain how its decision would not engender adverse consequences to the public.

Several states have recently used the DACA decision to challenge President Trump’s contentious Navigable Waters Protection Rule, a proposal that would remove environmental protections for streams, wetlands, and groundwater. In their lawsuit against President Trump’s Water Rule, environmental lawyers for the states argued that the Environmental Protection Agency failed to consider the states’ and parties’ “reliance” on previous water jurisdiction rules that were in place before the administration’s new water rule, an administrative requirement outlined in the DACA decision. This is one of the many ways the DACA decision will benefit environmental litigation.