Trump wants the power to stop the public from suing polluters

特朗普希望获得阻止公众起诉污染者的权力

Reducing rampant pollution across the United States was so important that when Congress passed many environmental protection laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act, it didn’t want to leave enforcement only to the executive branch. Congress specifically wrote into those laws ways for citizens to enforce them through the courts when the government does not act to address the problem. 减少美国境内猖獗的污染至关重要，因此当国会通过包括《清洁空气法》、《清洁水法》和《安全饮用水法》在内的多项环境保护法律时，它并不希望将执法权仅留给行政部门。国会在这些法律中明确写入了相关条款，允许公民在政府未采取行动解决问题时，通过法院来强制执行这些法律。

Called “citizen suit provisions,” those parts of the laws allow regular people and advocacy groups to sue companies they believe are violating the law. Citizens can also sue federal agencies that fail to enforce the laws. Since the 1970s, those provisions have been used in over 2,000 lawsuits. In fact, a majority of environmental cases are citizen suit cases. 这些法律条款被称为“公民诉讼条款”，允许普通民众和倡导团体起诉他们认为违法违规的公司。公民也可以起诉未能执行法律的联邦机构。自20世纪70年代以来，这些条款已被用于超过2000起诉讼中。事实上，大多数环境案件都是公民诉讼案件。

Citizen suits have been used to halt the construction of dams to protect endangered species, end the injection of wastewater into groundwater, and secure US$14.2 million in civil penalties for illegal emissions from a petrochemical facility. In short, these cases have shaped modern environmental law. 公民诉讼曾被用于阻止大坝建设以保护濒危物种、终止向地下水注入废水，并为一家石化设施的非法排放争取到了1420万美元的民事罚款。简而言之，这些案件塑造了现代环境法。

Now, in a legal filing, the Trump administration is saying citizens should not be allowed to enforce environmental laws. Rather, despite what the laws say, the US Department of Justice has claimed in a case involving Elon Musk’s xAI that people should be required to leave enforcement to the executive branch—even if the executive decides to take no action. 现在，特朗普政府在一份法律文件中表示，不应允许公民强制执行环境法。相反，尽管法律有明确规定，美国司法部在涉及埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）旗下xAI公司的一起案件中声称，即便行政部门决定不采取任何行动，民众也必须将执法权留给行政部门。

A history of success

成功的历史

For more than 50 years, citizen suits have been an effective part of cleaning up the environment in the US. The process is fairly straightforward: A person or group must send a formal notification to the person, company or agency they suspect of violating the law—with a copy to the US Environmental Protection Agency. If after 60 days the problem is not rectified, the people can sue. 50多年来，公民诉讼一直是美国环境治理的有效组成部分。其流程相当简单：个人或团体必须向他们怀疑违法的人、公司或机构发送正式通知，并抄送给美国环境保护署（EPA）。如果60天后问题仍未得到纠正，民众即可提起诉讼。

Citizen suits often ask the courts to order a stop to the polluting activity, payments for reducing or cleaning up the harm done, and civil penalties paid to the government. But if the government has already begun an enforcement action or is actively prosecuting the violator, a citizen suit cannot proceed. 公民诉讼通常要求法院下令停止污染活动、支付减少或清理所造成损害的费用，并向政府缴纳民事罚款。但如果政府已经启动了执法行动或正在积极起诉违规者，公民诉讼则无法进行。

The success of these cases depends on the ability of the plaintiff to prove a violation of the law. Violations of the Clean Water Act are somewhat easier to prove than violations of other statutes because the simple act of discharging a pollutant without a permit is a violation of the law. As a result, more citizen suit provisions have been brought under the Clean Water Act than under any other environmental statute. 这些案件的成功取决于原告是否有能力证明法律违规行为的存在。《清洁水法》的违规行为比其他法规更容易证明，因为未经许可排放污染物这一简单行为本身就是违法。因此，根据《清洁水法》提起的公民诉讼比任何其他环境法规都要多。

In my area of research, plastic pollution, citizen suits have been used to hold plastic pellet manufacturers responsible for pollution. For example, the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act allowed Diane Wilson, a shrimper from Texas’ Gulf Coast, to sue Formosa Plastics in 2017 for persistent discharges of plastic pellets into Lavaca Bay, where some shrimp were caught, and which is connected to the Gulf of Mexico. 在我研究的塑料污染领域，公民诉讼已被用于追究塑料颗粒制造商的污染责任。例如，《清洁水法》的公民诉讼条款允许德克萨斯州墨西哥湾沿岸的捕虾人黛安·威尔逊（Diane Wilson）在2017年起诉台塑集团（Formosa Plastics），指控其持续向拉瓦卡湾（Lavaca Bay）排放塑料颗粒，该海湾不仅是捕虾地，还与墨西哥湾相连。

In 2019, Formosa ended up settling for $50 million to pay for mitigation and remediation projects in the bay, cleaning up plastic and other pollution. Formosa also agreed to pay court costs and attorneys fees. 2019年，台塑最终以5000万美元达成和解，用于支付海湾的减缓和修复项目，清理塑料及其他污染物。台塑还同意支付诉讼费和律师费。

In another example, the environmental advocacy groups PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper in 2023 sued Styropek USA, which manufactured expandable polystyrene used for packaging and shipping, over pellet discharges into a western Pennsylvania creek. The pellets attracted and collected other toxic chemicals and were harming local aquatic plants and fish. 另一个例子是，2023年，环保倡导组织“宾夕法尼亚环境”（PennEnvironment）和“三河护水者”（Three Rivers Waterkeeper）起诉了Styropek USA公司，该公司生产用于包装和运输的可发性聚苯乙烯，起诉原因是其向宾夕法尼亚州西部的一条小溪排放颗粒。这些颗粒吸附并聚集了其他有毒化学物质，正在危害当地的水生植物和鱼类。

In 2025, Styropek settled for $2.5 million. As part of the settlement agreement, Styropek agreed to install filters in the facility’s wastewater and stormwater systems to capture plastic pellets before they reached Raccoon Creek or the Ohio River. Styropek also had to eliminate the unauthorized discharge of plastic pellets from all of the facility’s stormwater drains. 2025年，Styropek以250万美元达成和解。作为和解协议的一部分，Styropek同意在其设施的废水和雨水系统中安装过滤器，以便在塑料颗粒进入浣熊溪（Raccoon Creek）或俄亥俄河之前将其捕获。Styropek还必须消除该设施所有雨水排水管中未经授权的塑料颗粒排放。

Citizen suit provisions are not included in every law. But they have arisen in other contexts. For instance, a 2025 Texas state law seeks to restrict abortion rights and allows any citizen to sue doctors or other medical providers who perform or assist with abortions. 并非每部法律都包含公民诉讼条款，但它们已出现在其他背景下。例如，德克萨斯州2025年的一项法律旨在限制堕胎权，并允许任何公民起诉实施或协助堕胎的医生或其他医疗服务提供者。

NAACP v. xAI

NAACP诉xAI案

In April 2026, using the citizen suit provision of the Clean Air Act, the NAACP, a nationwide civil rights organization, sued xAI, an artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, in federal court. The NAACP alleged that xAI and a subsidiary company built and operated 27 natural gas-fired turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, without the required Clean Air Act permits. The turbines generated electricity to power xAI’s nearby Colossus 2 data center. 2026年4月，全国性民权组织NAACP利用《清洁空气法》的公民诉讼条款，在联邦法院起诉了埃隆·马斯克创立的人工智能公司xAI。NAACP指控xAI及其子公司在密西西比州南黑文市建造并运营了27台天然气涡轮机，且未获得《清洁空气法》要求的许可。这些涡轮机为xAI附近的数据中心“Colossus 2”提供电力。

The NAACP alleged that the gas plant released harmful pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, which can increase rates of asthma, respiratory diseases, heart problems, and certain cancers. Had xAI applied for a permit to operate the turbines under the Clean Air Act, the EPA would have required xAI to use the best available technology to reduce those emissions. But xAI never applied to the EPA for a permit. NAACP指控该天然气工厂排放了氮氧化物和甲醛等有害污染物，这些物质会增加哮喘、呼吸道疾病、心脏病和某些癌症的发病率。如果xAI根据《清洁空气法》申请了涡轮机运营许可，环保署（EPA）将要求其使用最佳可用技术来减少这些排放。但xAI从未向环保署申请过许可。

A request from the federal government

来自联邦政府的请求

In June 2026, the US Department of Justice asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming, among other arguments, that citizen suits cannot proceed when the federal government does not oppose the polluting behavior. The Justice Department’s court filing cited two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump within days of the start of his second term—one declaring a “national energy emergency” and the other seeking to support “American leadership in artificial intelligence.” According to the Justice Department, the NAACP’s lawsuit threatens “artificial intelligence innovation” and national security. The government’s filing goes on to argue that citizen lawsuits were not intended to allow… 2026年6月，美国司法部要求法官驳回此案，其理由之一是当联邦政府不反对某种污染行为时，公民诉讼不得进行。司法部的法庭文件引用了唐纳德·特朗普总统在第二个任期开始几天内签署的两项行政命令——一项宣布进入“国家能源紧急状态”，另一项旨在支持“美国在人工智能领域的领导地位”。据司法部称，NAACP的诉讼威胁到了“人工智能创新”和国家安全。政府的文件进一步辩称，公民诉讼并非旨在允许……