Congress needs to act now to stop the Trump administration from waiving federal environmental protections to build vehicle barriers and roads along the Rio Grande Wild & Scenic River in the Big Bend region. DHS has already issued two waivers stripping away 29 laws — including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act — and Big Bend National Park itself appears to be next.
This construction makes no strategic sense. Five Texas border sheriffs have said a wall in Big Bend is "not practical or strategic." The Lower Canyons are so remote they're only reachable by multi-day river trips — this is not a high-traffic crossing corridor. What it is home to is peregrine falcons, black bears, and water systems so fragile that road construction alone could cause irreversible ecological damage across the broader Southwest ecosystem.
Big Bend's economy runs on tourism. Visitors come specifically because it is wild and untouched. Permanent barriers and paved patrol roads destroy exactly what draws people there. The Center for Biological Diversity has called this "the groundwork for the destruction of one of the wildest places in America" — and they're right. Congress must use every available tool to block these waivers and protect Big Bend before the damage becomes permanent.
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