Today, Ranking Republican Rob Bishop (R-Utah) released the following statement on the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) proposal to modernize implementation regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA):

“There has been nothing more detrimental to the development of transportation, clean water, and energy infrastructure than America’s broken environmental review and permitting process. Today, the Administration took another step forward in bringing logic and rationality to the federal bureaucracy. Reducing redundancies, enhancing coordination with states and tribes, clarifying ambiguous terms, and establishing time frames for the completion of paperwork is the 20/20 vision we needed. Fringe-left special interest groups will continue to scream bloody murder, but these actions by President Trump will ensure the government works better for all.”

Background:

The National Environmental Policy Act was designed to assess environmental impacts of proposed major Federal actions. Since 1978, the Council on Environmental Quality has issued regulations for Federal agencies to implement NEPA. Comprehensive updates have not been made to these regulations in over 40 years, with only one limited substantive amendment in 1986.

In 2018, CEQ issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) requesting public input on potential updates to NEPA regulations. CEQ received over 12,500 comments, which were utilized to inform the proposed rule. The proposed rule would modernize CEQ regulations to facilitate more effective NEPA reviews by simplifying regulatory requirements, eliminating obsolete provisions and updating guidance to reflect current technologies and agency practices.