AGC of America submitted a public comment to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on March 27. In our comment, which was in response to CEQ’s Removal of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Implementing Regulations Interim Final Rule, AGC applauded CEQ’s efforts to streamline the environmental review process and recognized the opportunity presented to agencies to refine their own implementing procedures.
AGC has been engaged on permitting reform for years, most recently testifying before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Our efforts helped get the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) passed in 2023, which included the most impactful federal environmental review and permitting reforms in over 40 years.
CEQ’s withdrawal of the NEPA regulations represents the next step in the streamlining process. The regulations were overly burdensome, demanding too much from project proponents without delivering meaningful environmental benefits. With their removal, agencies will have the ability to develop their own implementing procedures that are efficient, consistent with the statute, and helpful to the agency’s decision-making process.
Our comment urged CEQ to work in an advisory role to ensure that agency procedures are not only consistent with the statute, but also consistent with each other. Many of our members work on projects that require approval from multiple agencies. When the implementing procedures do start to come out, AGC will be actively engaged to ensure agencies do not take disparate approaches to environmental review. We will ensure that the goals of the FRA – efficiency and simplicity – are achieved.
The full text of our comment can be found here.
For any questions on this issue, please contact Spencer Phillips.