CEQ Issues Revised Guidance On Categorical Exclusions

On April 9, 2026, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued updated guidance for federal agencies on establishing and applying categorical exclusions (CEs), the most commonly used form of review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq. The updated guidance replaces CEQ’s 2010 CE guidance and responds to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, 605 U.S. 168 (2025) and CEQ’s repeal of its NEPA implementation procedures early in the Trump administration.

Categorical exclusions have long been an established feature of NEPA practice, but they were first explicitly defined in the statute in the 2023 amendments to NEPA included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act.  See 42 U.S.C. § 4336e(1). A CE represents an agency’s identification of “a category of actions that a [f]ederal agency has determined normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment within the meaning of