Trump finalizes rollback of environmental rules blamed for crimping infrastructure

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“In this Administration, NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror has ended,” Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Katherine Scarlett said in a statement. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, CEQ acted early to slash needless layering of bureaucratic burden and restore common sense to the environmental review and permitting process.”

For more than 50 years, NEPA has required federal agencies to study the environmental effects of infrastructure projects, including transmission lines, highways, pipelines, and more — all of which require federal permits.

Supporters of the law argue that NEPA is crucial in preventing the endangerment of public lands and wildlife, as well as in mitigating climate change. Meanwhile, critics, both Republican and Democratic, argue that the law contributes to slower domestic infrastructure development, increased costs, and, in some cases, extensive litigation.

In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter authorized CEQ to oversee the NEPA, allowing the agency to issue regulations on implementing the law when issuing environmental-related permits. 

That authorization, however, came into question in 2024, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that CEQ lacked the authority to issue binding regulations under NEPA. This ruling was later affirmed in a similar decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota early last year. 

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The Trump administration has leveraged these court rulings to overhaul the environmental permitting process, asking CEQ to rescind all existing regulations on implementing NEPA and to provide new, non-binding guidance for agencies. 

CEQ published an interim final rule in February 2025, which went into effect later that April. The final rule, issued on Wednesday, responds to public comments received on the decision and reaffirms the agency’s move to remove the regulations. 

“The Trump CEQ is putting the American people first by cutting red tape that has held back growth of the U.S. economy and refocusing its attention on ensuring the certainty needed in the permitting process to invest in American infrastructure,” Scarlett said. “Renewing our energy and other infrastructure will lead to job creation, energy dominance, economic growth, and better environmental outcomes.”

The final rule comes as permitting reform discussions in the Senate have come to a head, and, most recently, been derailed by the Trump administration’s escalated crackdown on offshore wind. 

In late December, the House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation known, the SPEED Act, that would also overhaul NEPA and accelerate federal approvals for infrastructure and energy projects. 

The passage of the bill was seen as a major win in the bipartisan effort to reform the permitting process, but discussions were paused just days later after the Interior Department paused leases for five offshore wind projects, which are fully permitted and under construction — one of which was already pumping energy into the grid.

Leading negotiators in the Senate, including Environment and Public Works Chair Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), are still optimistic that the upper chamber can restart conversations in the coming weeks. 

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Capito told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that she still has a “very good relationship” with EPW ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been helping lead the Democratic negotiations and paused discussions in December. 

“I’m going to keep talking to him about it, and the administration to try and help us with this,” she said.