MORE REAL ID WAIVERS
The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona was the next to feel the brunt of the Real ID Act's destructive power. When the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife challenged the construction of the border wall across this World Heritage site and home of Arizona’s last free-flowing river, a federal court agreed that the Department of Homeland Security had ignored the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, and handed down an injunction temporarily halting construction. Rather than comply with the law, DHS Secretary Chertoff waived it, once again suspending the laws that were the basis of a successful suit, along with 18 others. Within days of the waiver, DHS restarted construction.
Apparently hoping to head off further court challenges to the border wall, in April 2008 DHS Secretary Chertoff issued two waivers. One waived 27 federal laws to allow for the insertion of border walls into the existing flood control levees in Hidalgo County, Texas. The second waiver covered every other section of border wall scheduled for construction from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. This border-wide mega-waiver suspended 36 federal laws. Along with the environmental laws set aside in earlier waivers, Chertoff waived the Farmland Protection Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and a host of others, along with all state and local laws related to the subjects of the waived federal laws.
No comments:
Post a Comment