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... 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. 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. 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.

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. ...