The DHS statement announcing the decision to exercise the waiver authority does not specify what laws are being waived. The statement, issued Sep. 14, emphasizes the elimination of environmental law protections, among them the National Environmental Policy Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act, but it does not otherwise catalog the specific laws waived. Moreover, DHS does not eliminate the possibility that non-environmental protections -- such as Davis-Bacon Act requirements for federal contractors to hire construction workers at the area's prevailing wage, or Occupational Safety and Health Act requirements for job safety -- have also been waived.

An attachment to the statement emphasizes the environmental protections that DHS has decided to implement in the absence of all the protections Congress has carefully developed over the last 30 years.

The statement does limit the scope of the waiver decision to expedite construction of border fencing along a 14-mile stretch near San Diego. It is unclear, however, if DHS is waiving any protections outside that geographical zone for activities related to the fence construction, such as waiving requirements for maximum hours of service for truck drivers delivering equipment or supplies to the border zone.

The Secretary of Homeland Security was given this unprecedented power to waive all law by the REAL ID Act, the Sensenbrenner immigration bill that was forced through Congress as a rider on the Iraq war supplemental.

Any legal challenge to DHS's decision will be complicated by a related section of the law, which purports to strip courts of any jurisdiction over "any cause or claim arising from any action taken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to" the power to waive all law.