The Trump administration has thrown a lot of wrenches into the way Washington operates — as seen in the daily drumbeat of headlines about DOGE, spending cuts and mass firings of federal workers. But the president is also making potentially far-reaching changes in how agencies weigh the environmental risks of projects such as pipelines and highways. Don't expect to see changes on the ground just yet, but the administration's latest moves could create more uncertainty about how agencies will consider projects’ risks to the environment. The White House Council on Environmental Quality announced last month it was giving up the rulemaking power it has had since 1977 to direct how agencies should follow the landmark National Environmental Policy Act. The move has left project developers with a lot of questions about what that means for complying with the bedrock environmental statute, which tells agencies to take a "hard look" at the environmental effects of federally backed projects. The resulting uncertainty about how to comply could make analyses more vulnerable to legal challenges — possibly delaying projects and increasing costs. Legal experts told POLITICO's E&E News what we know right now about NEPA under President Donald Trump: First, don't expect changes immediately. CEQ has said that even though it no longer has binding rulemaking authority, agencies should use its NEPA rules as guidance until the Trump administration writes replacement guidance. Agencies will also have to stay in line with decades of case law, a body of hundreds of court decisions that have set the legal guardrails for what agencies must consider to comply with NEPA. Some developers may redesign very-early- or very-late-stage projects to avoid the need for federal permitting and NEPA reviews altogether, said M. Benjamin Cowan, a partner at the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke. For example, a wind farm might reroute roads so it doesn’t need a Clean Water Act permit to build near wetlands or rivers. Second, CEQ's move will likely get challenged in court. CEQ issued an interim final rule to undo its existing regulations, fast-tracking the normal process for reversing an agency rulemaking. Environmental groups are likely to say CEQ did not follow the proper procedure. But CEQ has two recent federal court rulings that could bolster its case. Last year, a federal appeals court in D.C. ruled that CEQ does not have any rulemaking authority. A federal district court in North Dakota ruled similarly this year, and also struck down a Biden-era NEPA rule that had restored provisions gutted by the first Trump administration. Finally, the Supreme Court could make its own changes. The justices are considering a case called Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, which is asking the court to decide whether agencies have to weigh environmental risks that happen far from a project site and outside of their direct regulatory authority. The outcome of that case could influence how agencies evaluate a project’s indirect impact on global temperatures and other pollution. But legal experts said they would be surprised to see the justices say much of anything about CEQ's rulemaking authority since it wasn't the issue brought before the court. A ruling in that case is expected by early summer.
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