White House unveils plan to speed big projects permits
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[January 10, 2020]
By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump
administration on Thursday unveiled a plan to speed permitting for major
infrastructure projects like oil pipelines, road expansions and bridges,
one of the biggest deregulatory actions of the president's tenure.
The plan, released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),
would help the administration advance big energy and infrastructure
projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline or roads, bridges and federal
buildings that President Donald Trump and industry groups complained
have been hampered by red tape.
"For the first time in over 40 years today we are issuing a new rule
under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to completely
overhaul the dysfunctional bureaucratic system that has created these
massive obstructions," Trump said at the White House on Thursday.
The proposal to update the how NEPA, the 50-year bedrock federal
environmental law, is implemented is part of Trump's broader effort to
cut regulations and oversight to boost industry.
"This proposal affects virtually every significant decision made by the
federal government that affects the environment," Interior Secretary
David Bernhardt said, adding that the NEPA reform would be the "most
significant deregulatory proposal" of the Trump administration.
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The proposed rule says federal agencies would not need to factor in the
"cumulative impacts" of a project, which could include its impact on
climate change, making it easier for major fossil fuel projects to sail
through the approval process and avoid legal challenges.
CEQ chair Mary Neumayr told reporters that the agency will weigh
feedback during the rule's comment period on whether or how to more
explicitly address climate impacts.
The proposal would also put one federal agency in charge of overseeing
the review process, instead of giving multiple agencies oversight of the
process and set a two-year deadline for environmental impact studies to
be completed and a one-year deadline for less rigorous environmental
assessments.
Trump's efforts to cut regulatory red tape have been praised by
industry. But they have so far largely backfired by triggering waves of
lawsuits that the administration has lost in court, according to a
running tally https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup by the New
York University School of Law's Institute for Policy Integrity.
Over the last few years, federal courts have ruled that NEPA requires
the federal government to consider a project's carbon footprint in
decisions related to leasing public lands for drilling or building
pipelines.
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President Donald Trump delivers remarks following missile attacks by
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Other proposed change include widening the categories of projects
that can be excluded from NEPA altogether. If a type of project got
a "categorical exclusion" from one agency in the past, for example,
it would automatically be excluded from review by other agencies,
according to the plan.
According to CEQ, the average length of a full-blown Environmental
Impact Statement is currently 600 pages and takes 4.5 years to
conclude. U.S. federal agencies prepare approximately 170 such
assessments per year.
Trump, a commercial real estate developer before becoming president,
frequently complained that the NEPA permitting process took too
long.
"It's big government at its absolute worst," Trump said of NEPA.
Some of the country's biggest industry groups, including the Chamber
of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, also have
complained about lengthy permitting delays.
Environmental groups warned the plan will remove a powerful tool to
protect local communities from the adverse impacts of a hastily
designed and reviewed project.
"Today's destructive actions by Trump, if not blocked by the courts
or immediately reversed by the next president, will have
reverberations for decades to come,” said Rebecca Concepcion Apostol,
U.S. program director at Oil Change International, an environmental
group.
The plan will go through a 60-public comment period before being
finalized.
Environmental groups are expected challenge the final proposal.
"If the regulations announced today drive agencies to diminish the
extent or quality of their reporting, federal courts may very well
conclude that their reports do not comply with the law," said Notre
Dame Law School Professor Bruce Huber.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Bill Berkrot and
Marguerita Choy)
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