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1 [1] (April 9, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/cloevrnlq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Cogesoa Reeac Ser-l 4ce{ April 9, 2025 Council on Environmental Quality Rescinds NEPA Regulations: Legal and Policy Considerations The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. §§4321 et seq.) establishes a national policy with respect to environmental quality and the basic process for integrating environmental considerations into federal decisionmaking (i.e., environmental reviews). NEPA's environmental review process generally requires that agencies consider the environmental impacts of major federal actions. For actions with significant impacts, agencies generally must consider alternatives and disclose the potential effects of those actions. NEPA is typically described as a procedural statute, focusing on the process of decisionmaking rather than mandating specific environmental outcomes. Agencies retain flexibility to decide how to implement proposed actions provided they meet NEPA's procedural requirements. This In Focus provides an overview of the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) historical role in NEPA oversight, including its regulatory framework. For a discussion of NEPA's core elements, see CRS In Focus IF12560, National Environmental Policy Act: An Overview, by Kristen Hite (2023). NEPA established CEQ within the Executive Office of the President. Among other duties, NEPA directs CEQ to assist and advise the President on certain environmental matters, including NEPA implementation. The act instructs federal agencies to identify and develop methods and procedures, in consultation with CEQ, to implement NEPA. As discussed in the recent court cases cited below, NEPA does not expressly direct CEQ to issue regulations that agencies would be required to follow. Nevertheless, over the course of nearly five decades, CEQ maintained-and agencies and courts routinely applied-government-wide regulations implementing NEPA. This practice ended on February 25, 2025, when CEQ issued an interim final rule rescinding its NEPA regulations in their entirety. Changing Landscape of CEQ NEPA Guidance and Implementing Regulations Over the decades since NEPA was enacted, CEQ's approach has evolved in response to administrative priorities, statutory amendments, and judicial interpretation. These changes have shaped how agencies conduct environmental reviews and apply NEPA's procedural requirements. CEQ's guidance and regulations have traditionally served as a mechanism to standardize NEPA implementation across agencies. They include procedural requirements not explicitly addressed in statute. Establishment of CEQ Regulations In 1970, E.O. 11514 directed CEQ to, among other things, issue guidelines to address the preparation of detailed environmental statements under Section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. CEQ issued its first set of guidelines in 1971 and updated them in 1973 to introduce provisions on public involvement, draft and final environmental impact statements (EISs), and the concepts of environmental assessments (EAs). The guidelines were incorporated in 40 C.F.R. Part 1500, in part, to make them widely accessible. For most of the 1970s, CEQ's NEPA guidelines informed NEPA's implementation, but agency approaches varied, resulting in perceived delays in decisionmaking. In 1978, as directed by E.O. 11991, CEQ finalized its first binding regulations. Due, in part, to concerns over inconsistencies in NEPA implementation, CEQ introduced an efficient, uniform procedure applicable to all federal agencies in the form of binding regulations that became effective in 1979. CEQ stated that the three principal aims of these regulations were to reduce paperwork, to reduce delays, and at the same time to produce better decisions. In addition to establishing a uniform baseline procedure, CEQ's NEPA regulations directed each federal agency to establish its own procedures reflecting agency-specific statutory requirements, regulations, and guidance. CEQ amended its NEPA regulations in 1986 and 2010. Revisions to CEQ NEPA Regulations In 2020, CEQ issued a rule (the 2020 Rule) that in some respects limited the scope of agencies' NEPA analyses. The 2020 updates followed President Trump's E.O. 13807 (2017), which directed CEQ to, among other things, review and modernize its NEPA regulations to emphasize efficiency in environmental reviews for infrastructure projects. After receiving more than 1 million comments on its proposed rule, on July 16, 2020, CEQ promulgated the 2020 Rule, representing the most comprehensive revision of NEPA regulations in more than 40 years. In 2021, President Biden issued E.O. 13990, directing agencies to review and address regulatory actions from the prior administration that were inconsistent with specified environmental, public health, and climate objectives. CEQ subsequently announced a two-phased rulemaking approach to reconsider the 2020 Rule. CEQ then rescinded or further amended some portions of the 2020 Rule in 2022 (the Phase 1 Rule) and additional portions in 2024 (the Phase 2 Rule). In June 2023, Congress amended NEPA in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA; P.L. 118-5). On May 1, 2024, CEQ issued its Phase 2 Rule to implement the FRA NEPA amendments and for certain other purposes. Some of https://crsreport S

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