Biden Administration Attempts To Strengthen Current NEPA Environmental Review Process

In 2020, the Trump Administration restricted the environmental review process for major federal actions required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 ("NEPA") to essentially consider only the goals of the applicant; this was the first time a substantial change had been made to this process in over 20 years. To reverse this reduction in environmental protection, on October 7, 2021, the Council on Environmental Quality ("CEQ") published a rule proposal requiring that reviews under NEPA include a broad range of environmental concerns, including climate change and environmental justice, priorities of the Biden administration. The current proposal would require that agencies meaningfully consider environmental, economic and social impacts in their NEPA review, which is not compelled under the present regulations, and consider whether there are alternatives that would lessen the impacts of a project. This is significant given the passage of the Infrastructure