The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – enacted in 1970 with bipartisan support – has played a critical role in protecting birds, other wildlife, and communities. But a new proposal from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) would result in major changes to nearly 50 years of NEPA regulations created by both Republican and Democratic administrations. These regulations set how federal agencies make decisions impacting the environment.
Currently, NEPA requires federal agencies to assess the potential environmental effects of proposed actions before making final decisions. This includes public or private infrastructure projects, new regulations, federal grant decisions, and more. Additionally, NEPA ensures public transparency and engagement by requiring agencies to notify communities and provide them with the opportunity to respond before a decision is finalized. Under the new proposal, the 85+ federal agencies responsible for NEPA compliance have one year to issue their own rules, informed by high-level guidance issued by CEQ.
While Audubon recognizes the need for efficient, effective, and timely infrastructure permitting – including for clean energy and natural infrastructure projects – these changes could result in less informed decision-making, longer delays, higher compliance costs, economic impacts, and increased legal challenges due to inconsistent regulations across agencies.
What’s Changing and Why Does it Matter?
CEQ’s guidance calls for a reimagining of NEPA in key ways:
- Agency-Specific NEPA Regulations: Historically, CEQ has overseen how NEPA is implemented, ensuring consistency across agencies. Under the new guidance, each agency must develop its own regulations. This could lead to a fragmented approach where projects – such as those for energy development and transmission – require multiple permits from different agencies, risking increased delays, higher costs, and economic and jobs losses.
- Cumulative Impacts Analysis Removed: NEPA reviews have traditionally required agencies to assess how a new decision, when considered with previous decisions or existing infrastructure, might negatively impact the environment or public health. This new guidance removes the required “cumulative impacts analysis,” a longstanding component of federal environmental reviews. This means agencies may only evaluate the direct impacts of a new project without fully assessing the cumulative effects of multiple projects. For example, the construction of infrastructure near critical habitats, such as a transmission line near a wetland, could result in small amounts of runoff and pollution. While this alone may not be harmful enough to require mitigation, when multiple infrastructure projects, like paved roads or electric substations, are also being planned in that same area, it may create a significant risk to that wetland. Without analyzing cumulative impacts, agencies may overlook nearby existing or proposed pollution sources when making permitting decisions, potentially leading to less informed decisions and imperiling birds, other wildlife, and communities. Likewise, this change makes it nearly impossible for agencies to consider whether proposed development projects may exacerbate larger landscape or global scale environmental threats, like climate change or deforestation.
- Community Considerations Limited: Under current regulations, agencies are required to evaluate how their decisions might disproportionately impact communities who are adjacent to or downwind of proposed projects. The proposed changes would eliminate this requirement, reducing public input and potentially resulting in adverse effects for families, communities, and Tribes.
- Environmental Review Shifted to Project Sponsors: The new guidance would direct agencies to prioritize environmental reviews prepared by those seeking infrastructure permits, placing the review process under the control of those with an economic interest in the project. This approach could make it difficult to ensure project sponsors prepare accurate and unbiased documents that are guided by the best science, potentially threatening birds and their critical habitat.
What Comes Next?
Audubon firmly believes bipartisan action can both streamline permitting and protect communities, ensuring progress without compromising protections. These proposed changes do not equip federal agencies with a process that would improve timely permitting of major infrastructure projects that are guided by the latest science and thoughtful consideration of their impact on communities.
CEQ is accepting public input on the proposed NEPA changes until March 27. Audubon urges its members to take action and ask CEQ to reconsider these changes.
