The White House’s Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized a rule that it said would streamline the environmental review process under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).
CEQ, in a statement, said the new rule “fully implements” new permitting efficiencies the administration and Congress agreed to last summer when Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act to raise the federal debt ceiling, including “setting clear deadlines for agencies to complete environmental reviews, requiring a lead agency and setting specific expectations for lead and cooperating agencies, and creating a unified and coordinated federal review process.”
Some in Congress say the final rule reneges on the debt ceiling deal, and that it will extend—not reduce—the time it takes to get traditional energy infrastructure projects, like oil and gas pipelines, built.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the White House “disregarded” the deal, “corrupting it with their own radical agenda.”
Manchin vowed to lead a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval “to get back to the deal that they cut with Congress and signed into law.”
“This [rule] will only lead to more costly delays and litigation," Manchin said in a statement, adding that the new regulations “will take us backward.”
The American Petroleum Institute (API) said the final rulemaking was “the opposite of what is needed to create a durable and predictable permitting review process” and “adds bureaucratic roadblocks to an already arduous process.”
The rule threatens the buildout of needed energy projects, including low-carbon infrastructure, said Dustin Meyer, API senior vice-president of policy, economics, and regulatory affairs. He added the rule will cause “more uncertainty, more stalled projects, and more taxpayer dollars drained from agencies and the courts.”
EIS, environmental justice, alternatives
The new rule directs agencies to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) within 2 years and a less-extensive environmental assessment within 1 year, but it allows a lead agency to extend the deadline if it does so in writing.
It currently takes an average of 3.5 years for the federal government to complete an EIS, with a quarter of projects taking 6 years or more, API said, citing CEQ’s latest data.
CEQ’s new rule caps the length of an EIS at 150 pages for straightforward projects and 300 pages, not including appendices, for complex projects. Currently, the median length of an EIS runs 447 pages, with a quarter of the projects exceeding about 750 pages or more, not including appendices, which have a median length of 423 pages. API said.
The rule creates new methods for the federal government to establish a “categorical exclusion” in the permitting process. A project receiving a categorical exclusion does not need an environmental review, the most time-consuming part of the permitting process, because the government has determined it would have a negligible impact on the environment. The rule allows multiple agencies to issue a joint categorial exclusion.
CEQ said “low-impact projects” that may qualify for the categorial exclusions could range “from solar storage and electric vehicle charging infrastructure to transmission improvements and broadband deployment,” with no mention of oil and gas projects.
The rule also directs federal agencies to consider environmental justice and the proposed project’s effects on climate change, including by quantifying “reasonably foreseeable greenhouse gas emissions” in their reviews. It also directs agencies to identify reasonable alternatives, “like wind and solar projects,” to mitigate climate impacts.
The regulation reverses some provisions in a 2020 Trump administration rule that CEQ said made it more difficult for communities to engage in the environmental review process and “attempted to curtail judicial review” of permitting decisions.
Permitting reform is a longstanding priority of the energy industry, most Republicans, and many members of Congress from energy states.
Environmental groups praised the rule for ensuring agencies consider climate change and social justice in decisions.
