Mark Nevitt (Emory University School of Law) has posted The Environmental Law of the Border Wall (Lawfare) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The secretary of homeland security just announced what appears to be a major policy shift for the Biden administration: The administration will begin building a 20-mile border wall along the Lower Rio Grande Valley at the U.S.-Mexico border. To expedite its construction, the secretary suspended 25 distinct environmental laws plus the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The secretary highlighted that there is “presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers” as part of his reasoning in waiving environmental legal protections. This raises two questions. First, did President Biden have to build this section of the border wall? Second, was waiving this flurry of environmental laws required?