Policy & Regulation

White House finalizes reforms to environmental reviews to speed up permitting

White House finalizes reforms to environmental reviews to speed up permitting
(Image by stanthonys solar from Pixabay)

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has finalized a rule to reform, simplify, and modernize the federal environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The new rule will build on more than $1 billion from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to expedite federal agency permitting, the President’s Permitting Action Plan, and other permitting reforms occurring across the Administration to help accelerate environmental reviews. Together, these reforms are meant to help accelerate permitting for everything from wildfire management and electric vehicle charging infrastructure to high-speed internet and semiconductor manufacturing.

CEQ’s Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule fully implements new permitting efficiencies secured in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, including setting deadlines for agencies to complete environmental reviews, requiring a lead agency and setting specific expectations for lead and cooperating agencies, and creating a unified and coordinated federal review process.

In addition to implementing the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the rule provides agencies with new tools meant to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of environmental reviews. In one case, the rule creates new ways for federal agencies to establish categorical exclusions, the fastest form of environmental review. The rule is also meant to help accelerate reviews for projects that agencies can evaluate on a broad, programmatic scale, or that incorporate measures to mitigate adverse effects.

Additionally, the White House said the new roles promote early public engagement in the environmental review process in an effort to reduce conflict and increase “legal durability.”

“President Biden has unleashed historic investments to build our clean energy future, make long-overdue infrastructure upgrades across the nation, and deliver benefits to communities that have been historically left behind,” said Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “These reforms will deliver smarter decisions, quicker permitting, and projects that are built better and faster. As we accelerate our clean energy future, we are also protecting communities from pollution and environmental harms that can result from poor planning and decision-making while making sure we build projects in the right places.”

Clean energy, transmission, semiconductor manufacturing, and other crucial infrastructure

In addition to identifying a lead federal agency, setting one- and two-year environmental review deadlines and page limits, and incorporating procedures for agencies to adopt categorical exclusions established by other agencies as directed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the rule aims to create other new efficiencies that result in a more predictable and efficient permitting process and increased certainty for project sponsors. The rule will:

  • Establish new and “more flexible” methods for agencies to establish categorical exclusions to speed up low-impact projects, from solar storage and electric vehicle charging infrastructure to transmission improvements and broadband deployment. This includes clarifying that agencies can jointly establish categorical exclusions.
  • Expand the use of programmatic environmental reviews, consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, to help speed the construction of everything from semiconductor manufacturing to transmission and offshore wind. The rule also promotes the use of shared analysis to discourage duplication of effort.
  • Enable lower levels of environmental review when a project sponsor or agency has opted to mitigate the effects of the project.
  • Clarify that projects with long-lasting beneficial impacts, such as environmental restoration activities that do not have significant adverse effects, do not require environmental impact statements.
  • Ensure evaluation of alternatives, including advancing projects with lower greenhouse gas emissions such as wind and solar.

Effects on climate change, public health, and environmental outcomes

The rule clarifies that agencies should consider the effects of climate change in environmental reviews and encourage identification of reasonable alternatives that will mitigate climate impacts.

In addition, the rule will:

  • Require environmental impact statements to discuss relevant risk reduction, resiliency, or adaptation measures, as well as the potential for disproportionate adverse effects on the environment and public health.
  • Restore and update the long-standing approach to evaluate the significance of a proposed action’s environmental effects, which was rolled back by the Trump Administration, in an effort to ensure agencies conduct the proper level of environmental review, and that reviews focus on the consequential effects of proposed actions.
  • Where feasible, require environmental reviews to quantify the reasonably foreseeable greenhouse gas emissions of a proposed project to better understand its climate impacts.
  • Direct agencies to identify the environmentally preferable alternative(s) earlier in the review process, rather than waiting for the final decision.

Environmental justice and public input

The rule is also intended to ensure projects are built with early and “meaningful” engagement with communities.

In addition, the rule:

  • Directs agencies to consider environmental justice in environmental reviews and to encourage measures to avoid or reduce disproportionate effects on communities, including the cumulative impacts of pollution.
  • Requires agencies to consider the needs of affected communities when developing outreach and notification strategies so communities know about and can participate in decisions that affect them.
  • Directs agencies to identify Chief Public Engagement Officers responsible for facilitating community engagement for environmental reviews.
  • Directs agencies to identify the environmentally preferable alternative(s) earlier in the review process, rather than waiting for the final decision.

Revisions

The rule removes provisions that the White House says created litigation risks, as they were “legally questionable.”

These changes include:

  • Removing detailed and onerous requirements on what public comments must contain to be considered by agencies.
  • Removing provisions that attempted to curtail judicial review.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a final transmission permitting reform rule and a new commitment for up to $331 million aimed at adding more than 2,000 MW of additional grid capacity throughout the Western United States.

DOE is issuing a final rule to establish the Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits (CITAP) Program, which aims to improve Federal environmental reviews and permitting processes for qualifying transmission projects. Under the CITAP Program, DOE will coordinate a federal-integrated interagency process to consolidate federal environmental reviews and authorizations within a standard two-year schedule while ensuring engagement with tribes, local communities, and other stakeholders.

Originally published in POWERGRID International.