On March 27, ABC joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups in submitting comments on the Council on Environmental Quality’s interim final rule repealing all National Environmental Policy Act regulations previously issued by CEQ.

In accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order on Unleashing American Energy, the interim final rule stated that CEQ no longer has authority to issue binding NEPA regulations and tasked federal agencies with developing their own NEPA rules. The rule and associated guidance also state that CEQ will work with federal agencies to assist them in developing these regulations with the goal of expediting permitting approvals.

ABC’s comments supported the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline permitting regulations and provided feedback on areas where improvements can be made, including:

• Ensuring reviews are not unnecessarily delayed and documents do not exceed page limits, in compliance with the ABC-supported Fiscal Responsibility Act
• Appropriately tailoring NEPA purpose and need statements to the project
• Expanding categorical exclusions
• Directing reviews to only consider reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of agency actions

The interim final rule is effective April 11.