On April 8, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) circulated a draft template for federal agencies to use when updating their regulations and procedures implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). CEQ issued the draft template in response to President Trump’s directive in Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, which instructs CEQ to provide NEPA implementation guidance that will expedite permitting approvals. According to CEQ, the template “provide[s] a framework that agencies may consider and adapt to their missions” as they implement NEPA.
Agencies are now updating their NEPA rules and procedures to fill a regulatory void after President Trump withdrew a Carter-era executive order authorizing CEQ to issue rules governing agencies’ implementation of NEPA. Though several agencies already have NEPA regulations in place, many are decades-old and conflict with NEPA as amended in 2023. CEQ issued guidance in February telling agencies to complete their updates within one year, and to “expedite permitting approvals” and rely on CEQ’s 2020 rule, finalized under the first Trump administration, “as an initial framework.” The April 8 draft template builds on that guidance by offering model language for agencies’ revisions to their NEPA rules and procedures.
In this paper we review the most important changes CEQ recommends in its draft template and highlight where that template pulls from previous CEQ rules (the 1978 rules, the 2020 rule finalized under the first Trump administration, and the Phase I and II rules finalized under the Biden administration) and where the template introduces novel provisions. These changes include factors that shape agencies’ level and scope of environmental analyses, the preparation of environmental documents, and limits on the consideration of alternative actions. This summary is not comprehensive of all changes in CEQ’s template.
Read the analysis, including a table comparing CEQ’s April 8 template to prior rules.