NEPA Overhaul: Trump Administration Finalizes Landmark Rule Reform

On July 15, the Trump Administration issued a long-anticipated overhaul of the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA")—the first substantive amendment to the regulations since the 1970s. The Final Rule's stated goal is to comprehensively update, modernize, and clarify the current regulations "to facilitate more efficient, effective, and timely NEPA reviews by federal agencies."¹ As analyzed in our prior alert on the Proposed Rule, the rule makes significant changes to agency implementation of NEPA, and legal challenge is expected.

I. Overview of the Final Rule

The Final Rule will go into effect on September 14, 2020, 60 days after it was published in the Federal Register. To implement the Final Rule, Federal agencies have up to one year to propose revisions to their own NEPA regulations to conform to the new CEQ rules. Moreover, the Final Rule largely codifies existing case law, executive orders and agency guidance. As a result,