The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a 1969 law that requires all federal agencies to evaluate and disclose the environmental consequences of their actions. For any “major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,” agencies must follow a review process that typically involves deciding whether the action is: (1) categorically excluded from detailed review, (2) needs an Environmental Assessment (EA) and a possible Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), or (3) requires a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that analyzes impacts and reasonable alternatives before the agency makes a final decision, with opportunities for public input at the EA/EIS stages.
Eliminating CEQ’s government‑wide NEPA regulations (40 C.F.R. Parts 1500–1508) removes the single, binding framework that previously standardized how agencies conducted environmental reviews. NEPA reviews now rest mainly on the statute itself (as amended in 2023) and each agency’s own NEPA procedures, which CEQ is helping them rewrite through nonbinding guidance; in the near term CEQ has told agencies to keep using their existing procedures, but over time reviews are expected to become more decentralized and agency‑specific, even as many agencies move to streamline timelines and documentation in line with the new guidance.
The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is an office within the Executive Office of the President, created by NEPA to assist and advise the President and to coordinate federal environmental efforts, including how agencies implement NEPA. NEPA directs CEQ to assist and advise the President on environmental matters and NEPA implementation, and CEQ consults and coordinates with agencies and issues guidance; historically it also issued binding NEPA regulations, but recent court decisions and President Trump’s 2025 executive order have led CEQ to treat its role as primarily advisory, focusing on guidance and consultation while agencies adopt and apply their own NEPA procedures.
President Carter’s 1977 Executive Order 11991 amended an earlier order to require CEQ to “issue regulations to Federal agencies for the implementation of the procedural provisions” of NEPA and to include procedures for early preparation of environmental impact statements and for referring agency conflicts to CEQ; it also directed federal agencies to comply with CEQ’s regulations unless that would conflict with their own statutes. When President Trump’s 2025 executive order "Unleashing American Energy" revoked EO 11991, it removed the presidential directive that had underpinned CEQ’s government‑wide NEPA rules, and CEQ has since relied on that revocation—along with court decisions questioning its rulemaking power—to justify rescinding its NEPA regulations and shifting back to issuing nonbinding guidance while agencies write and follow their own NEPA procedures.
An Interim Final Rule (IFR) is a regulation that becomes legally effective when issued (or on a short effective date) even though the agency has not first gone through the usual notice‑and‑comment process; agencies generally justify this by invoking the Administrative Procedure Act’s “good cause” exception when prior notice and comment would be impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest, and they invite comments afterward. A standard final rule, by contrast, is typically issued only after the agency publishes a proposed rule, receives and considers public comments, and then releases a final rule that takes effect after a delay; an IFR may later be modified or replaced with such a conventional final rule once post‑promulgation comments are reviewed.
NEPA most directly affects large, discretionary federal actions such as major transportation projects (e.g., federal‑aid highways and bridges), energy infrastructure requiring federal approval (like interstate natural gas pipelines, LNG export terminals, and non‑federal hydropower dams), significant projects on federal lands, and private or state projects that need substantial federal permits or funding. CEQ’s interim final rule rescinding its NEPA regulations took effect in spring 2025, and CEQ guidance and President Trump’s 2025 executive order directed agencies to revise their own NEPA procedures within about a year; according to the White House, major permitting agencies had updated their procedures by June 30, 2025, so applicants for new projects from mid‑2025 onward are generally the first to experience the streamlined, agency‑specific processes, while many ongoing reviews have continued under pre‑existing procedures.
Yes. Commentators anticipate that CEQ’s rescission of its NEPA regulations, and agency‑level procedures that follow, will be challenged under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) on grounds such as: that the interim final rule unlawfully bypassed or curtailed standard notice‑and‑comment requirements or lacked a reasoned explanation for abandoning decades of precedent; that CEQ misinterpreted its statutory authority in concluding it cannot issue binding rules; and that new agency procedures inspired by CEQ’s guidance unlawfully narrow NEPA’s scope or weaken analysis (for example by limiting which actions are reviewed or by downplaying cumulative impacts or environmental justice), contrary to NEPA’s instruction that its policies be carried out “to the fullest extent possible”—arguments similar to those already raised in earlier lawsuits challenging prior CEQ NEPA rules.