NEPA
Biden Administration Proposes “Phase 2” Revisions to NEPA Regulations
On July 31, 2023, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for its second phase of revisions to the 2020 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) amendments. As a brief primer, NEPA imposes procedural requirements on all federal agencies to consider the effect of a project or action on the…
Recent Debt Ceiling Legislation Includes Several Significant Changes to NEPA
On June 3, 2023, President Biden signed a legislative package lifting the federal debt ceiling that includes the first statutory amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) since 1982. While the legislation modified certain aspects of NEPA practice, many of the changes codify (i.e., enact into a statute) existing regulations or executive orders, preventing…
Council on Environmental Quality’s New NEPA Regulations: An Analysis
On September 14, 2020, the Council on Environmental Quality’s (“CEQ”) Final Rule overhauling its regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) became effective. The Final Rule represents the first comprehensive revision of the NEPA regulations since their initial issuance in 1978, and introduces process-based and substantive changes to the NEPA regulations, codifies existing case law and…
Court Narrows Scope of NWP 12 Ruling; Corps Appeals to Ninth Circuit
Last month, we wrote about a recent decision from the US District Court for the District of Montana vacating Nationwide Permit (“NWP”) 12, the general permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) for pipelines and other utility projects. On May 11, the court narrowed the scope of the decision, vacating and enjoining the…
Nationwide Permit for Pipelines and Utility Projects Vacated on ESA Grounds
On April 15, 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Montana issued a decision in Northern Plains Resource Council v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, vacating Nationwide Permit (“NWP”) 12, a general permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) for pipelines and other utility projects. The case was brought, in…
NEPA Review of Pipeline Project Upheld by D.C. Circuit – With Asterisk
On June 4, the D.C. Circuit issued a decision in Birckhead, et al. v. FERC, in which the petitioners challenged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (“FERC”) environmental review of a natural gas pipeline project.[1] Although the court ultimately rejected the challenge, the court suggested in dicta that FERC should do more to obtain information on…