White House highlights administration actions to change NEPA and speed federal permitting

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a 1970 U.S. law that makes federal agencies stop and think about environmental impacts before they act. For any “major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment” (for example, approving a big highway, pipeline, mine, or land‑management plan), agencies must:

• Study likely environmental effects and reasonable alternatives, usually in an Environmental Assessment (EA) or a more detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
• Use a systematic, interdisciplinary process that considers environmental, social, and economic effects.
• Disclose this information to the public and allow public comment before making a final decision. NEPA is mainly a procedural law: it does not force agencies to choose the most environmentally friendly option, but it requires them to analyze impacts and make that analysis public.

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is a small office in the Executive Office of the President created by NEPA. Its job is to:

• Oversee how federal agencies carry out NEPA.
• Issue guidance (and historically regulations) on NEPA procedures.
• Review and approve agencies’ own NEPA procedures and help resolve inter‑agency environmental disputes.
• Advise the President on environmental policy more broadly.

Katherine Scarlett is the 13th Chair of CEQ under President Trump (confirmed by the Senate on September 18, 2025). She serves as the President’s senior environmental policy advisor and leads government‑wide implementation of NEPA and permitting reforms, drawing on prior experience with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the federal Permitting Council.

President Trump’s Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy” (Jan. 20, 2025), gave CEQ several specific NEPA‑related instructions:

• Revoke President Carter’s 1977 Executive Order 11991 that had told CEQ to issue binding, government‑wide NEPA regulations, and instead have CEQ return to a narrower advisory role.
• Direct the CEQ Chair to rescind CEQ’s existing NEPA implementing regulations at 40 C.F.R. Parts 1500–1508 and treat them only as voluntary guidance.
• Require CEQ to issue new guidance by February 19, 2025 on how agencies should implement NEPA “to expedite and simplify the permitting process,” including a template and flowchart for agencies’ own NEPA procedures.
• Instruct CEQ to convene a working group to coordinate revisions to agency‑specific NEPA rules so they align with the administration’s priorities and statutory NEPA amendments. These directions are what the article refers to when it says the order told CEQ to “expedite and simplify” permitting.

Several layers of statutory and regulatory changes were used to speed permitting:

1. Statutory NEPA amendments (Fiscal Responsibility Act / “Builder Act,” 2023) Congress amended NEPA in 2023 to:

• Impose time limits on reviews: generally 1 year for Environmental Assessments (EAs) and 2 years for Environmental Impact Statements (EISs).
• Impose page limits: about 75 pages for EAs, 150 pages for EISs (up to 300 pages for unusually complex projects).
• Narrow which actions count as “major federal actions,” allowing more projects to avoid full NEPA review. These are often called the “Builder Act” provisions and were intended to make reviews shorter and more predictable.

2. Executive Order 14154 and CEQ guidance (2025)

• The order told agencies, via CEQ’s February 19, 2025 memo, to treat those statutory deadlines and page limits as firm and to “prioritize efficiency and certainty over any other objectives” in NEPA reviews.
• CEQ’s February and September 29, 2025 NEPA implementation guidance and agency procedures template built those deadlines and page limits into a standard process agencies are expected to follow.

3. Agency‑level NEPA regulations (mid‑2025)

• After CEQ rescinded its own NEPA regulations, major permitting agencies (e.g., Transportation, Interior, Energy, USDA, Army Corps) adopted or revised their agency‑specific NEPA rules around June–July 2025 to incorporate these time and page limits and to streamline steps like scoping, use of categorical exclusions, and joint reviews.

Together, these statutory deadlines, page‑length caps, and streamlined procedures are the main concrete changes used to accelerate permitting timelines.

The permitting changes largely keep NEPA’s basic framework but narrow and compress it, which has implications for environmental protection:

• Shorter, more tightly limited reviews (1–2 year deadlines and 75/150‑page caps) leave less time and space to analyze cumulative impacts, climate change, environmental justice, and indirect effects. Analysts and outside reviewers have warned this can mean less thorough assessment of risks to public lands, wildlife habitat, and pollution burdens.
• Narrower definition of “major federal action” and broader use of categorical exclusions mean more projects—especially smaller or routine infrastructure and energy projects—can proceed with little or no NEPA analysis, reducing public visibility into potential impacts.
• The Supreme Court’s Seven County decision and CEQ’s guidance emphasize that NEPA is purely procedural and limit consideration of effects beyond an agency’s direct jurisdiction, shrinking the range of environmental consequences agencies must study.

Supporters argue these steps remove red tape and focus agencies on truly significant effects; critics argue they weaken safeguards for ecosystems, climate, and communities by reducing the depth and scope of review.

Implementation is spread across the federal government, but with a clear timeline:

• Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ): Issued NEPA implementation memos (Feb. 19 and Sept. 29, 2025), a model procedures template, and a flowchart, and in 2025–26 finalized the removal of its own NEPA regulations as directed by the executive order.
• Line agencies: Departments and agencies that issue permits or fund/undertake projects—such as Transportation, Interior (including BLM and NPS), Energy, Agriculture (USDA/Forest Service), Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, and others—are responsible for updating and then applying their agency‑specific NEPA procedures in daily permitting decisions.
• Timing: CEQ’s February 19, 2025 memo instructed agencies to update their NEPA procedures within 12 months (by Feb. 19, 2026). Many “major permitting agencies” issued updated NEPA rules or procedures around June 30–July 2025, and those rules began governing new reviews as they became effective. CEQ’s January 7, 2026 final rule then reaffirmed the rescission of CEQ regulations and completed that deregulatory step.

So, the reforms are already being implemented by multiple agencies, with most changes taking effect in stages from spring/summer 2025 through early 2026 as each agency’s procedures come online.

The article’s claim that Congress and the Supreme Court “acted” to cut through NEPA refers mainly to:

1. Congress – Fiscal Responsibility Act / “Builder Act” amendments (2023)

• In the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, Congress passed the so‑called Builder Act changes to NEPA. These:
  • Imposed 1‑year (EA) and 2‑year (EIS) deadlines.
  • Set 75‑page (EA) and 150/300‑page (EIS) limits.
  • Narrowed what counts as a “major federal action” and encouraged more use of categorical exclusions. These were framed as bipartisan permitting reform to streamline reviews.

2. Supreme Court – Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County (2025)

• In May 2025, the Court unanimously held that NEPA is “purely procedural” and does not require agencies to study indirect, upstream or downstream impacts (like distant oil wells or refineries) that lie outside their regulatory authority.
• The decision sharply limits the scope of environmental effects agencies must analyze and instructs lower courts to give agencies substantial deference on NEPA judgments, which makes it harder to delay projects via NEPA litigation.

The Trump Administration’s CEQ guidance explicitly “builds upon” these congressional amendments and the Seven County ruling, which is why the White House describes all three branches as having moved to streamline NEPA.