President Trump is unveiling updates to decadesold environmental permitting requirements Wednesday in an effort to speed approval of infrastructure projects from highways and bridges to oil and gas pipelines.
The move could usher in significant changes to the regime of environmental reviews that has been in place, with few changes, since the Nixon administration. Industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say the updates to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, would free projects from yearslong logjams that cost millions and deter new infrastructure.
But environmental advocates argue the Trump administration’s changes would undercut the public’s ability to weigh in on infrastructure projects. NEPA is a critical check on projects, including new fossil fuel infrastructure, they say, as it offers an outlet for people whose public health would be most affected. Those people are typically minorities or low-income, they add.
Trump, a real estate developer who touts himself as a “builder,” will announce the permitting changes at the UPS Hapeville Airport Hub in Atlanta.
If the final version is consistent with what the White House proposed in January, it would require environmental reviews to be completed within two years and set page limits for the assessments, which can often be hundreds of pages. The Trump administration is also expected to remove or downplay requirements that projects consider “cumulative” environmental effects, as well as limit the scope of projects that would be subject to reviews.
“The new regulations will modernize, simplify, and accelerate the environmental review process necessary to build a wide range of projects in the United States, including roads, bridges, and highways,” a White House official said, previewing the announcement. “The rule will also provide needed certainty for project sponsors and will facilitate the rebuilding of America.”
NEPA has become a hotbed of legal fights in recent years, as environmental activists have turned to the courts to block the Trump administration’s rush to increase U.S. production of fossil fuels. The Trump administration has cut corners in the review process, too, to speed things along, leaving its decisions vulnerable.
Just last week, a federal district court ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been operating for three years, to shut down and empty completely of oil by Aug. 5, citing a deficient environmental review by the Trump administration. The Army Corps failed to consider the potential damages the pipeline would cause to the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as the risks of an oil leak, the judge said. Energy Transfer, which operates the pipeline, is now seeking to overturn the decision, with the Trump administration’s support.
Environmentalists say decisions such as the Dakota Access shutdown prove how important NEPA is and how detrimental the Trump administration’s changes to it would be.
“Once you fast-track and eliminate crucial environmental review, then there’s no information about what the potential impacts could be,” said Peggy Shepard, executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. The Trump administration’s changes will sideline public input to “greenlight” projects for industry, risking especially the health of black and brown people who often live closest to industrial facilities, she added.
Shepard said NEPA’s requirements to assess the cumulative effects of new infrastructure or facilities is particularly important for people in more-polluted regions.
“When you’ve got 10 or more facilities in one small community, nobody is looking at what is the impact of all of those facilities in that community,” she said.
Industry groups, however, say changes to NEPA are long overdue.
“The process needed to be clarified because it’s been abused and stretched to the point of projects now taking four and a half years on average to get a NEPA review,” said Chad Whiteman, the Chamber’s vice president of environment and regulatory affairs. He noted guidance for the original Nixon-era regulations said reviews for even the most complex projects should be completed within two years.
Whiteman added the Trump administration’s changes offer an opportunity to “restore NEPA back to its original intent” to provide timely decisions, transparency to the public, and more efficient federal permitting.
Whiteman and others argue that clean energy projects stand to benefit from NEPA updates, too. Vineyard Wind, as well as other offshore wind projects in the Northeast, have been suffering from delays on environmental permitting requirements, Whiteman said.
“NEPA reform presents a powerful narrative that reducing regulatory burdens can benefit the economy and the environment,” said Devin Hartman, director of energy and environment policy at the R Street Institute. “For example, every fuel category of the clean energy industry wants NEPA reform.”
Indeed, when the Trump administration proposed its updates in January, renewable energy groups such as the Solar Energy Industries Association and the American Wind Energy Association offered support for expediting the environmental review process. However, the solar trade group, in comments to the White House, expressed concerns about eliminating consideration of cumulative effects, which the group said would “effectively eliminate” analysis of a project’s climate change effects.
Environmentalists say it isn’t necessary to choose between a quick buildout of clean energy and comprehensive NEPA reviews.
“I don’t see the conflict with doing full and complete environmental and public health reviews and getting projects, particularly clean energy projects, built in a timely fashion,” said Kristen Boyles, a staff attorney with Earthjustice. She added the NEPA process makes the ultimate decision about a project better because businesses are forced to look at alternatives and environmental effects.
“We’ve been doing this for 50 years,” Boyles said. “The vast majority of projects have not had any issues.”
