WYOMING — On Feb. 25, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued an interim final rule withdrawing its implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the mechanism that has safeguarded the nation’s public lands for over 40 years.
CEQ’s withdrawal of its NEPA regulations will take effect on April 11, putting environmental oversight into the hands of individual federal agencies.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, NEPA is an environmental law requiring federal agencies to assess environmental impacts on air quality, water, soil, vegetation, wildlife, education, sensitive species, recreation, transportation, the economy and environmental justice prior to making development decisions. NEPA also informs the public about any actions taken on federal land.
Congress enacted NEPA in 1969, and President Nixon signed it into law on Jan. 1, 1970. In 1977, President Carter issued an Executive Order directing the CEQ to establish a national framework for all federal agencies to comply with NEPA to help ensure protection of the environment.
Buckrail recently spoke with Temple Stoellinger, J.D., a University of Wyoming Associate Professor in the Haub School of Environment and National Resources and Wyoming Excellence Chair, who teaches a course in understanding NEPA. She said that President Trump reversed Carter’s Executive Order, rescinding the CEQ’s structure on how to comply with NEPA. According to Stoellinger, the NEPA statute will still be in place but the CEQ will issue “policy recommendations or suggestions” instead of its previously binding environmental laws.
“Even when I teach NEPA, we really leaned on those CEQ regulations to understand how to functionally implement NEPA on the ground,” Stoellinger said. “We are in a holding pattern until we truly know how impactful this will be.”
Dessa Reimer, a national resources attorney who helps companies “navigate the NEPA process” when obtaining permits to construct on federal lands, told Buckrail that “NEPA has not been nixed.”
Reimer explained that federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Park Service will still have to comply with NEPA when authorizing activities on federal lands, including the construction of airports, buildings, military complexes, highways and energy exploration. She said that the interim rule will now allow individual agencies to recommend their own NEPA guidelines.
“The statute is the statute and only Congress has the power to change it,” Reimer said. “Regardless of what’s happening on the regulatory side, the statute still requires agencies to engage in environmental review and provide Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) when their actions have significant effects on the environment.”
Reimer stressed that any future delays in permitting will not arise from the loss of CEQ’s environmental mandates, but from a lack in adequate staffing.
Wyoming Outdoor Council Legal and Governmental Relations Director Matt Gaffney contended that NEPA is a very subjective law that could easily be misinterpreted without the guidance of the CEQ. He shared with Buckrail that the original purpose of NEPA was to mandate federal agencies to disclose environmental impacts, present alternatives and mitigate any major proposed action.
“Each agency has their own way of doing NEPA and their own regulations,” Gaffney said. “The USFS’s NEPA is different than BLM’s NEPA and the Department of Transportation’s NEPA. The value in having the CEQ issue those regulations was that it provided consistency, clarity and a kind of an anchor in implementation of NEPA.”
Protect Our Water Executive Director Phil Powers told Buckrail that there could be a “more reckless approach to development” and “less stringent environmental regulations” with agencies creating their own NEPA guidelines when submitting permits to drill for oil, build roads or construct pipeline infrastructure. Powers said that CEQ regulations dictated how EISs were performed, a concern now that the current administration is arguing that EISs are too costly, cumbersome and take too much time.
“This is potentially a devastating impact on environmental protection in the U.S.”
Protect Our Water Executive Director Phil Powers
“I worry that some agencies will take a lot of the teeth out of NEPA,” Powers said. “This is potentially a devastating impact on environmental protection in the U.S., which is of course is a priority for us and future generations.”
Powers said that federal agencies’ recent staff cuts will also make it more difficult for personnel to devise and oversee NEPA guidelines.
“Delegating NEPA to agencies that are already underfunded is an inefficient methodology,” Powers said. “Many agencies, like the USFS, are under-resourced going into this administration. This disarray and ambiguity that is being experienced at the agency level does not put them in any great position to implement NEPA themselves.”
Powers said that litigation against the federal ruling is imminent.
“There will definitely be some lawsuit action around this to make sure this is being handled correctly,” Powers said. “One of the advantages we have in the U.S. is to be able to enjoy the large stretches of wilderness, wildlands and places to hunt and fish. Many people in the U.S. experience a great deal of soulful sustenance by being able to visit places of that kind — I know that that’s been an important part of my life.”
The CEQ will be accepting comments on the interim ruling through Thursday, March 27.
