Several federal agencies have recently announced revisions to their procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that officials say will streamline reviews for projects. Contractors see benefits, but environmental advocates say reviews will be less open to public participation and may overlook project impacts.
The immediate impact of these changes is likely to create uncertainty about how the agencies approach their NEPA analyses, Bracewell’s Ann Navaro told Engineering News-Record. Going forward, it will be a question of how NEPA procedures evolve at each agency and for different types of projects.
“Under the old CEQ regulations, every agency was required to provide for public comment on a draft environmental impact statement,” Navaro said. “That requirement is not in the statute, and the CEQ regulations are now gone. So in these new procedures, most agencies have made that public comment opportunity discretionary with the agencies to decide in any particular situation.”
