On June 16, our organization joined legal and civil rights advocates across the country in submitting significant adverse comments to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in response to its attempt to rescind critical nondiscrimination protections through an improper use of the Direct Final Rule process.

The proposed rule would eliminate:

• The Department’s longstanding disparate impact standard, which enables the identification and redress of policies that, while facially neutral, disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities of color; and
• Regulatory requirements for language access and community engagement, which are essential to ensuring that recipients of DOE funding do not exclude or overlook marginalized populations in program delivery or infrastructure decisions.

These rollbacks represent a major change in civil rights law—one that requires full notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act. DOE’s attempt to bypass this process is both procedurally flawed and substantively harmful, particularly for environmental justice communities disproportionately impacted by federally funded energy infrastructure.

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center urges the Department to withdraw this rule immediately and recommit to transparent, equitable governance that safeguards the rights of all communities. Read the full letter here.