White House issues new rule streamlining certain environmental reviews

A proposed rule issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) would streamline the process of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews as part of the deal reached to raise the debt ceiling earlier this year. 

The rule streamlines the environmental review process under NEPA by allowing multiple agencies to develop joint categorical exclusions, the term for actions that do not affect the environment enough to require an environmental impact statement. 

The rule also adds language clarifying that for projects with only “significant, long-lasting positive impacts,” no environmental impact statement is required, CEQ officials said on a call with reporters Thursday. 

The rule would also roll back a 2020 Trump administration rule that imposed what CEQ called excessive requirements for public comments that discouraged public participation in the process. 

The proposed rule directs agencies to consider environmental justice in the review process and includes a provision encouraging, but not requiring, agencies to avoid disproportionate environmental impacts on vulnerable communities, the first such provision in a CEQ rule. The Biden administration has frequently emphasized environmental justice, or considerations of the impact of environmental policies on vulnerable communities, in its policy proposals, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

“These reforms to federal environmental reviews will deliver better decisions, faster permitting, and more community input and local buy-in,” said Brenda Mallory, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a statement. “This rule is a key element of President Biden’s permitting reform agenda that will help us speed the build-out of our clean energy future while reducing pollution and harms in communities that have been left out and left behind for far too long.” 

“Today’s proposed regulations represent our Administration’s next step on permitting to help accelerate infrastructure and clean energy deployment while promoting meaningful public input and advancing environmental justice,” added White House clean energy adviser John Podesta.