WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump Army Corps of Engineers today for failing to release information about its plans to rubber-stamp the destruction of wetlands to speed along fossil fuel energy projects.

The projects are being fast-tracked at the direction of President Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, which calls on agencies to take action without complying with legally required environmental reviews.

“The public has a right to know if the Trump administration is signing off on rampant, illegal destruction of imperiled wetlands,” said Hannah Connor, environmental health deputy director at the Center. “Wetlands provide clean water for people and wildlife alike and protect us against the increasingly severe flooding and storm surges that are being spurred by fossil fuel induced climate chaos.”

In February the U.S. Army Corps reclassified nearly 700 pending wetland permits on projects from Alaska to Florida as requests for emergency permit approval, an action that likely violates the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. Following pushback, including the Center’s notice of intent to sue, the Army Corps reversed course in March and stated it was reconsidering how, and when, it would use emergency authorities to approve the destruction of wetlands.

Since that reversal the Army Corps has not provided the public with information on how, or if, it will again seek to use emergency review processes on any pending projects, or what criteria the agency would use to decide whether to allow a proposed project to get expedited review.

Neither the Clean Water Act nor the Endangered Species Act allows the Army Corps to expedite permits to destroy wetlands based on a generalized emergency declared under the National Emergencies Act. An analysis by the Center found that the attempted use of emergency powers to destroy wetlands would result in significant harm to polar bears, whooping cranes, manatees, and numerous other threatened and endangered species.

The Center filed its Freedom of Information Act request with the Army Corps on March 4 but has yet to receive any records. The law is meant to ensure public access to information about the functioning of federal agencies by guaranteeing a response within 20 business days of a request.

While agencies can face backlogs in processing FOIA requests, the Trump administration continues to deliberately stall responses. Already it has asserted that its huge DOGE initiative is exempt from public disclosure, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired the staff responsible for responding to FOIA requests at his agency.

The Center’s FOIA lawsuits helped to shed light on the first Trump administration’s efforts to undo a coal-leasing moratorium on public lands and efforts to halt endangered species protections from pesticides. Records obtained in one of the lawsuits showed that former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had stalled species protections from pesticides, which led to an investigation by the inspector general.

Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Center expects to receive records from the suit in the next two to three months.