NEPA's all over the news today. (& you should definitely pay attention to that news...) It reminds me that ever since I first read it (in the '90s?) I've loved the preamble to the National Environmental Policy Act. (Totally realize what a nerdy sentence that is.) 1/t

To be sure, the implementation of NEPA is deeply flawed in many, many instances--more and more so in the past couple of decades. And tribal consultation under NEPA in many (most?) instances is not what it should be. At all. 2/t

I've always imagined that someday Americans would come to their senses and realize what a valuable and insightful law it is; that we'd ensure Congress strengthened NEPA to protect communities & the environment & future generations. 3/t

But it's been under various attacks for decades. (This is a story I wrote in 2002, with a kickass graphic from @wuerker
for example: https://www.hcn.org/issues/237/13467) The Trump business is the latest & the worst. But NEPA's been undervalued and undermined for a long, long time. 4/t

Anyway, back to that preamble, which I always thought was so lovely, despite the mention of "man" instead of you know, the rest of us: 5/t

"To declare national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; ..." 6/t

"...to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality." 7/t

Harmony, eliminating damage to the environment, enriching understanding of ecological systems. I've always loved the idea of codifying these things. Of making sure that projects we undertake--dams, pipelines, roads, whatever--were done in harmony with the environment. 8/t

Reading that now in these darkest of times reminds me it's a law worth fighting for, a law worth protecting--and a law worth strengthening. Words matter. And someone wrote those words in the late 1960s b/c they imagined a better future. And had ideas about how to get there. 9/9