Source: https://www.enotrans.org/article/administration-issues-final-changes-to-nepa-implementing-regulations/
Timestamp: 2020-08-13 03:15:23
Document Index: 301741511

Matched Legal Cases: ['arts 1500', '§1508', '§1508', '§1508', '§1506', '§ 1506', '§1501', '§1501', '§1506', '§ 1506', '§1501', '§1508', '§1502', '§1502', '§ 1502', '§1508', '§1508', '§1508', '§1508', '§1502', '§1508', '§ 1501']

Administration Issues Final Changes to NEPA Implementing Regulations – The Eno Center for Transportation
Environment Federal Governance Project Delivery
The Trump Administration has issued the final rule updating the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the first time since the regulations were first issued in 1978. The final rule was announced by President Trump at a speech in Atlanta on July 15 and became official when printed in the Federal Register the following day.
NEPA was enacted in 1970, but formal implementing regulations were not promulgated until 1978. The agency that implements NEPA is the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and the regulations are in parts 1500 to 1508 of title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
The Trump Administration has made regulatory streamlining and the reduction of permitting timeframes a key feature of its infrastructure policy, so they issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on the topic in June 2018 and then issued a formal proposed rule (NPRM) in January 2020.
(Now that we have online commenting, which was not anticipated when the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 set up the public comment system for proposed regulations, we get situations like this, from the final rule: “Following the publication of the NPRM, CEQ received approximately 1,145,571 comments on the proposed rule. A majority of the comments (approximately 1,136,755) were the result of mass mail campaigns, which are comments with multiple signatories or groups of comments that are identical or very similar in form and content. CEQ received approximately 8,587 unique public comments of which 2,359 were substantive comments raising a variety of issues related to the rulemaking and contents of the proposed rule, including procedural, legal, and technical issues. Finally, 229 comments were duplicate or non-germane submissions, or contained only supporting materials.)
What kinds of federal actions automatically get the full EIS treatment? NEPA only requires “major federal actions” to get the full, cumbersome environmental impact statement (EIS) process. The new rule clarifies that some specific kinds of action are not major federal actions, particularly non-final actions or “Non-Federal projects with minimal Federal funding or minimal Federal involvement where the agency does not exercise sufficient control and responsibility over the outcome of the project…”
§1508.18 Major Federal action. §1508.1 Definitions.
Major Federal action includes actions with effects that may be major and which are potentially subject to Federal control and responsibility. Major reinforces but does not have a meaning independent of significantly (§1508.27). Actions include the circumstance where the responsible officials fail to act and that failure to act is reviewable by courts or administrative tribunals under the Administrative Procedure Act or other applicable law as agency action. (q) Major Federal action or action means an activity or decision subject to Federal control and responsibility subject to the following:
(a) Actions include new and continuing activities, including projects and programs entirely or partly financed, assisted, conducted, regulated, or approved by federal agencies; new or revised agency rules, regulations, plans, policies, or procedures; and legislative proposals (§§1506.8, 1508.17). (2) Major Federal actions may include new and continuing activities, including
projects and programs entirely or partly financed, assisted, conducted, regulated, or approved by Federal agencies; new or revised agency rules, regulations, plans, policies, or procedures; and legislative proposals (§ 1506.8 of this chapter).
[(a) continued] Actions do not include funding assistance solely in the form of general revenue sharing funds, distributed under the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972, 31 U.S.C. 1221 et seq., with no Federal agency control over the subsequent use of such funds. Actions do not include bringing judicial or administrative civil or criminal enforcement actions. (1) Major Federal action does not include the following activities or decisions:
(i) Extraterritorial activities or decisions, which means agency activities or decisions with effects located entirely outside of the jurisdiction of the United States;
(ii) Activities or decisions that are non-discretionary and made in accordance with the agency’s statutory authority;
(iii) Activities or decisions that do not result in final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act or other statute that also includes a finality requirement;
(iv) Judicial or administrative civil or criminal enforcement actions;
(v) Funding assistance solely in the form of general revenue sharing funds with no Federal agency control over the subsequent use of such funds;
(vi) Non-Federal projects with minimal Federal funding or minimal Federal involvement where the agency does not exercise sufficient control and responsibility over the outcome of the project; and
(vii) Loans, loan guarantees, or other forms of financial assistance where the Federal agency does not exercise sufficient control and responsibility over the effects of such assistance (for example, action does not include farm ownership and operating loan guarantees by the Farm Service Agency pursuant to 7 U.S.C. 1925 and 1941 through 1949 and business loan guarantees by the Small Business Administration pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 636(a), 636(m), and 695 through 697g).
What are the new timeframes? The part of the new rules that the Administration talks about the most is a hard time limit on the duration of the NEPA process.
§1501.8 Time limits. §1501.8 Time limits.
Although the Council has decided that prescribed universal time limits for the entire NEPA process are too inflexible, Federal agencies are encouraged to set time limits appropriate to individual actions (consistent with the time intervals required by §1506.10). When multiple agencies are involved the reference to agency below means lead agency. [deleted]
(a) The agency shall set time limits if an applicant for the proposed action requests them: Provided, That the limits are consistent with the purposes of NEPA and other essential considerations of national policy. (a) To ensure that agencies conduct NEPA reviews as efficiently and expeditiously as practicable, Federal agencies should set time limits appropriate to individual actions or types of actions (consistent with the time intervals required by § 1506.11 of this chapter).
(b) The agency may: (b) To ensure timely decision making, agencies shall complete:
(1) Environmental assessments within 1 year unless a senior agency official of the lead agency approves a longer period in writing and establishes a new time limit. One year is measured from the date of agency decision to prepare an environmental assessment to the publication of an environmental assessment or a finding of no significant impact.
In the remainder of §1501.8, everything stays the same except that a requirement in the old rule that agencies consider the “degree to which the action is controversial” when setting time limits is removed.
Looking at the big picture. The new rule makes significant changes in how big a picture an EIS can look at, deleting references to the “cumulative impact” of multiple projects in the same area that have had separate EIS processes, and instead only looking at the “reasonable foreseeable environmental trends and planned actions in the area.” And particularly note the changes in the new rule under §1508.1(g)(2), on “but for” causality and the limits of agency reach.
§1502.15 Affected environment. The environmental impact statement shall succinctly describe the environment of the area(s) to be affected or created by the alternatives under consideration. The descriptions shall be no longer than is necessary to understand the effects of the alternatives. Data and analyses in a statement shall be commensurate with the importance of the impact, with less important material summarized, consolidated, or simply referenced. Agencies shall avoid useless bulk in statements and shall concentrate effort and attention on important issues. Verbose descriptions of the affected environment are themselves no measure of the adequacy of an environmental impact statement. §1502.15 Affected environment. The environmental impact statement shall succinctly describe the environment of the area(s) to be affected or created by the alternatives under consideration, including the reasonably foreseeable environmental trends and planned actions in the area(s). The environmental impact statement may combine the description with evaluation of the environmental consequences (§ 1502.16), and it shall be no longer than is necessary to understand the effects of the alternatives. Data and analyses in a statement shall be commensurate with the importance of the impact, with less important material summarized, consolidated, or simply referenced. Agencies shall avoid useless bulk in statements and shall concentrate effort and attention on important issues. Verbose descriptions of the affected environment are themselves no measure of the adequacy of an environmental impact statement.
§1508.7 Cumulative impact. Cumulative impact is the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. [deleted]
§1508.8 Effects. Effects include:
§1508.1(g) Effects or impacts means changes to the human environment from the proposed action or alternatives that are reasonably foreseeable and have a reasonably close causal relationship to the proposed action or alternatives, including those effects that occur at the same time and place as the proposed action or alternatives and may include effects that are later in time or farther removed in distance from the proposed action or alternatives.
(1) Effects include ecological (such as the effects on natural resources and on the components, structures, and functioning of affected ecosystems), aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic (such as the effects on employment), social, or health effects. Effects may also include those resulting from actions that may have both beneficial and detrimental effects, even if on balance the agency believes that the effect will be beneficial.
(2) A ‘‘but for’’ causal relationship is insufficient to make an agency responsible for a particular effect under NEPA. Effects should generally not be considered if they are remote in time, geographically remote, or the product of a lengthy causal chain. Effects do not include those effects that the agency has no ability to prevent due to its limited statutory authority or would occur regardless of the proposed action.
(3) An agency’s analysis of effects shall be consistent with this paragraph (g). Cumulative impact, defined in 40 CFR 1508.7 (1978), is repealed.
§1508.25 Scope. Scope consists of the range of actions, alternatives, and impacts to be considered in an environmental impact statement. The scope of an individual statement may depend on its relationships to other statements (§§1502.20 and 1508.28). To determine the scope of environmental impact statements, agencies shall consider 3 types of actions, 3 types of alternatives, and 3 types of impacts. They include:…
§1508.1(cc) Scope consists of the range of actions, alternatives, and impacts to be considered in an environmental impact statement. The scope of an individual statement may depend on its relationships to other statements (§ 1501.11 of this chapter).
The effective date of the new rule will be September 14, 2020, but it will almost certainly be challenged in court, and if Democrats win both chambers of Congress and the Presidency this fall, it might be nullified under the Congressional Review Act next January or February (depending on how many days of session Congress has in 2020).