Americans for Prosperity Foundation Applauds Finalization of Trump NEPA Permitting Reforms 

Today, the Trump Administration announced that the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) took a key step in achieving landmark permitting reforms by finalizing an Interim Final Rule (IFR) rescinding CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing regulations. Americans for Prosperity Foundation applauds this action, which was made possible, in part, by President Trump’s day-one Executive Order on “Unleashing American Energy,” which repealed an Executive Order issued by President Carter directing CEQ to issue government-wide NEPA rules. AFPF submitted a comment supporting CEQ’s IFR and this outcome. CEQ’s Final Rule adopts the IFR without change, reaffirming “CEQ’s conclusion that, absent E.O. 11991, CEQ lacks authority to issue” NEPA regulations, a result consistent with arguments raised in AFPF’s and other supportive comments, which are acknowledged and discussed in the Final Rule.  

By way of background, NEPA is a purely procedural statute requiring federal agencies to create environmental reports before approving proposed projects under certain circumstances. But for decades, CEQ’s dubious NEPA regulations have added layers of needless complexity to the review process, making it much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive for project proponents to obtain permits necessary for infrastructure and other development projects. Worse, in the past project opponents weaponized these regulations to delay and block projects they do not like. Today, CEQ formally put an end to this by finalizing its repeal of these regulations, also issuing guidance to agencies on implementing NEPA moving forward, including on making the course corrections required by the Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado curtailing the scope of the studies agencies must perform to comply with NEPA. 

AFPF commends CEQ for taking these important steps to cut needless bureaucratic red tape and unleash American energy and prosperity. AFPF has long argued that CEQ lacks authority to issue government-wide NEPA regulations that bind courts and the public and is instead limited to issuing guidance to agencies tasked with implementing NEPA, including in a comment opposing the prior administration’s unlawful proposal to expand CEQ’s NEPA regulations, an amicus brief submitted in Seven County, and, most recently, AFPF’s comment on the IFR.