Over the past twenty-five years, NumbersUSA has published numerous scientific reports on the causes and consequences of sprawl in the United States. Our most recent study quantifies ecological decline in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed over the past three decades. Looking forward, we explore a path toward ecological sustainability centered on stabilizing the region’s population through reduced immigration.
Despite half a century of efforts to improve water quality and restore fisheries in America’s Chesapeake Bay, its ecological health continues to decline. A new study from NumbersUSA quantifies this ecological decline within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, explores its causes, and discusses possible futures.
By Jeremy Beck
With millions of inadmissible aliens remaining in the U.S. from the border crisis alone, it is conceivable that we’ll continue to see negative net migration for the next few years. That could change if interior enforcement or self-deportations decline.
If federal immigration policies driving national population growth continue, California’s environment and residents’ quality of life will pay an ever higher price. There can be no sustainability in a context of ever growing human populations.
Road salt causes long-term water contamination. Mass immigration expands roads and salt use. Population growth makes the damage unavoidable.
By Jeremy Beck
The Laken Riley Act became the first bill to address enforcement failures to be passed by Congress on a bipartisan basis since the 2006 Secure Fence Act. Twenty years ago, the bipartisan support came from the likes of Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL), John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Biden (D-DE), Hilary Clinton (D-NY) Barack Obama (D-IL), and Charles “Chuck” Schumer (D-NY).
Overall environmental conditions in the United States deteriorated in 2025, as the nation continued to add more people to already overburdened ecosystems. As the U.S. population reaches 345 million, the country’s environmental problems increasingly reflect a basic mismatch between human numbers and ecological capacity.
For decades after the Clean Air Act (1970), new emission standards, cleaner fuels and technological innovations brought steady air quality improvements to America’s metro regions. But those gains have since stalled, as population growth, with its traffic expansion and rising energy demands, overwhelms the benefits of air pollution controls.
Each Thanksgiving, we say we’re “going home for the holidays.” But more and more, it feels like we’re running the gauntlet through an endless traffic jam. The culprit? Rampant population growth.
