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New Iteration of Nationwide Permit 12 Greenlights Environmental Destruction
Washington, D.C. — Environmental groups sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today over the Trump administration’s plan to fast-track the construction of oil and gas pipelines through wetlands, streams and rivers nationwide. The Corps’ latest issuance of Nationwide Permit 12, which was previously struck down by federal courts, would destroy wildlife habitat and endanger drinking water sources from coast to coast.
Today’s lawsuit asserts that the Corps approved the permit in January without analyzing the environmental dangers of pipelines, including oil spills and the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of waterways that people and endangered wildlife rely on.
In 2020 a federal court ruled that the Endangered Species Act requires the Corps to consult with expert wildlife agencies to ensure federally protected animals and plants are not harmed by the nationwide permit program. However, the Corps ignored that order and reissued the permit without considering the potential harm from Nationwide Permit 12 on imperiled species.
Today’s lawsuit also contends the Corps violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to fully consider the significant environmental harm from pipeline construction and operation in waters and wetlands.
The Clean Water Act allows the Corps to issue nationwide permits for categories of activities with only minimal impacts, which then means individual projects can usually proceed without any further review. The Corps’ issuance of Nationwide Permit 12 is a blatant abuse of the program, as it authorizes massive oil and gas projects to avoid public scrutiny and a more complete environmental analysis of their potential harm.
“We’re not going to let the Army Corps abandon its obligation to protect our nation’s waters and imperiled wildlife in favor of dangerous pipelines,” said Meg Townsend, a senior freshwater attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration’s blatant disregard of bedrock environmental laws puts rivers, streams and wetlands at risk of serious contamination, threatening the people and wildlife who rely on these waters.”
“The Army Corps is legally obligated to protect our wetlands and waterways from pollution and destruction. Instead, they’re using nationwide permits to streamline extremely destructive projects, such as giant oil and gas pipelines that stand to destroy natural habitats and devastate water quality across the country,” said Daniel E. Estrin, general counsel and legal director for Waterkeeper Alliance. “We’re filing suit because our waterways, communities and wildlife deserve protection, not a rubber stamp.”
“The Army Corps has again ignored the most basic tenets of our bedrock laws with this latest attempt to greenlight pipelines and other industrial projects across the country,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth U.S. “It shouldn’t take multiple, consecutive lawsuits to ensure that the federal government complies with its most basic obligations to fully consider significant environmental harms and impacts to protected species, but here we are. Friends of the Earth is proud to stand with our partners in this integral fight to stop unlawful handouts to polluters that could endanger people and the planet.”
“The Army Corps is using Nationwide Permit 12 to sidestep the laws that protect our waters, wetlands and wildlife, and to make it easier for the oil and gas industry to build pipelines with minimal oversight,” said Doug Hayes, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club. “Congress never intended this program to be a shortcut for fossil fuel projects with such widespread and lasting environmental impacts. Communities deserve a thorough review of projects that threaten clean water we all depend on. This lawsuit is intended to ensure the Corps follows the law instead of giving polluters another free pass.”
“The new Nationwide Permit 12 allows pipeline projects to evade meaningful environmental review at a time when the proposed Bridger Pipeline (AKA Keystone XXL) poses major threats to the Missouri, Yellowstone and Poplar rivers — critical waterways that Montanans depend on,” said Shannon James, campaigns and advocacy director at the Montana Environmental Information Center. “Pipelines fail, and allowing them to be approved without adequate environmental review is downright dangerous.”
Background
Nationwide permits offer a shortcut to the Corps’ standard permitting process under section the Clean Water Act. Under the permit, specific projects require no public notice, and in many cases projects covered by these permits may be constructed without any notification to the Corps at all.
The 2026 iteration of Nationwide Permit 12 will allow thousands of discharges of dredged or fill material into the nation’s waters and wetlands from oil and gas pipeline construction. The Corps estimates that it will be used 3,700 times per year, or an estimated 18,500 times over its expected five-year duration, directly impacting approximately 1,500 acres of U.S. waters. These activities, approved with little or no environmental review, threaten iconic species like critically endangered sturgeon and hundreds of species of migratory birds that need wetlands to survive.
In 2019 conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging the 2017 iteration of the permit, and the Trump administration’s use of it to approve the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. A federal court in Montana found that the Corps had violated the Endangered Species Act by not consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the harms to endangered wildlife. The Trump administration has ignored that decision and reissued the program without conducting the necessary consultation to ensure imperiled species are protected.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Friends of the Earth fights to protect our environment and create a healthy and just world. We speak truth to power and expose those who endanger people and the planet. Our campaigns work to hold politicians and corporations accountable, transform our economic systems, protect our forests and oceans, and revolutionize our food & agriculture systems. For more information, please visit www.foe.org.
The Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) is a non-partisan, non-profit environmental advocate dedicated to ensuring livability for Montanans now and in the future by working for clean air, clean water, and a livable climate. MEIC advocates for, educates, and empowers people working toward Montana’s Constitutional right to “a clean and healthful environment” and the protection and restoration of life-sustaining land, air, water, and climate of what is currently known as Montana. Learn more: www.meic.org
Waterkeeper Alliance is a global movement uniting more than 350 Waterkeeper groups around the world, focusing citizen action on issues that affect our waterways, from pollution to climate change. The Waterkeeper movement patrols and protects over 2.75 million square miles of rivers, lakes, and coastlines in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. For more information, please visit waterkeeper.org.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.
Featured image of Canada Lynx by patrice schoefolt
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CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
Facts Only
* Environmental groups sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the Trump administration’s plan for fast-tracking oil and gas pipeline construction through wetlands, streams, and rivers nationwide.
* The lawsuit challenges the issuance of Nationwide Permit 12, which was previously struck down by federal courts.
* The permit allegedly allows destruction of wildlife habitat and endangers drinking water sources from coast to coast.
* The lawsuit asserts the Corps approved the permit in January without analyzing environmental dangers, such as oil spills and waterway destruction.
* A prior federal court ruling stated that the Endangered Species Act requires the Corps to consult with expert wildlife agencies regarding nationwide permit programs.
* The Corps allegedly ignored this order and reissued the permit without considering potential harm to imperiled species.
* The lawsuit contends the Corps violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider environmental harm from pipeline construction.
* Nationwide permits allow projects with minimal impacts to proceed without further review.
* The 2026 iteration of Nationwide Permit 12 will allow thousands of discharges into waters and wetlands from oil and gas pipeline construction.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The legal challenge centers on the tension between administrative efficiency, as facilitated by nationwide permits, and established environmental statutes designed for rigorous protection of specific ecological features. The pattern observed is a systemic attempt to use broad regulatory mechanisms—Nationwide Permits—to circumvent detailed, site-specific environmental assessments mandated by laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. This suggests a recurring dynamic where regulatory bodies prioritize the streamlining of industrial development over comprehensive environmental scrutiny.
The argument relies on demonstrating that a streamlined process creates an unacceptable risk to protected entities. The central implication is whether the functional utility of permits for industry supersedes the legal obligation to ensure minimal impact, especially when dealing with interconnected systems like watersheds and endangered species habitats. The narrative suggests that relying on broad permits effectively allows large-scale industrial actions to proceed by diffusing liability and avoiding granular review across numerous jurisdictions. This dynamic echoes patterns where administrative discretion is leveraged to achieve outcomes favored by powerful economic interests, raising questions about the legitimacy of regulatory shortcuts when dealing with shared public resources and biodiversity.
What further scrutiny is needed regarding the proportionality between the minimal impact assessment allowed under current permitting structures and the known potential for catastrophic harm to critical habitats? If the framework allows broad waivers based on a low threshold of impact, how can legal systems effectively enforce the mandate of "no significant harm" across expansive, interconnected ecosystems like coast-to-coast waterways? Does relying on procedural compliance, rather than substantive environmental review, ultimately serve the public interest when facing irreversible ecological damage?
Sentinel — Human
The text functions as an informative summary of a complex environmental litigation, effectively synthesizing legal history, procedural failures, and activist positions on pipeline permitting, written in a journalistic advocacy style.