EPA Proposes Commonsense NEPA Reforms to Get America Building Again
WASHINGTON — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed commonsense reforms to the way it carries out the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which, if finalized, would make environmental reviews faster, clearer, and more predictable so America can build more, without lowering a single environmental standard.
NEPA was written to protect Americans from the potential environmental harms of major federal actions. As the U.S. Supreme Court noted just last year, NEPA has been turned into a weapon to delay and block the very projects communities need — roads, bridges, energy, and water infrastructure — burying them under years of paperwork and litigation while delivering little for the environment in return. EPA's proposal restores NEPA to its original purpose: setting firm timelines, keeping documents focused and concise, and expanding proven, low-risk review pathways, all while keeping environmental protections fully intact.
"NEPA was never meant to be a weapon to kill projects — it was meant to protect the environment we all share," said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. "For decades, it's done the opposite: drowning critical projects in paperwork and lawsuits. Our new reforms, if finalized, would set hard deadlines, cut the red tape, and let America build more, and we're doing it without weakening a single environmental protection. Faster, smarter, and cleaner is exactly how government should work for the American people."
"For decades, NEPA has been a source of costly delays and uncertainty for critical infrastructure projects," said CEQ Chairman Katherine Scarlett. "The reforms EPA announced today align with the historic deregulatory effort underway under President Trump's leadership — to unleash American energy, drive economic growth, and secure our Nation while maintaining practical environmental standards."
The proposal would tackle the most widely recognized, bipartisan criticisms of the federal review process while ensuring environmental impacts are fully considered and addressed:
- Streamlines the process without weakening environmental protections. This proposal would not rescind a single environmental standard. Every project must still comply with all applicable environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. What changes is the process, not the protections.
- Sets reasonable page limits. The average final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) runs 661 pages. EPA's proposed rule would cap an EIS at 150 pages — or 300 pages for actions of extraordinary complexity — so reviews can stay focused on what matters.
- Enforces firm deadlines. Today, an EIS takes an average of four years to complete. The proposal would require EPA to finish an EIS within two years and to certify it has met its statutory deadlines.
- Sharpens the scope. The proposed rule would clarify that NEPA analysis covers the proposed action and its reasonably foreseeable environmental effects — not speculative or indirect effects unrelated to the action itself.
- Simplifies categorical exclusions (CEs). The proposal would create a fast, straightforward process for establishing new CEs and adopting other agencies' existing ones, cutting duplicative analyses. CEs are categories of actions an agency has determined, after review by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), do not have a significant effect on the human environment, and therefore typically do not require an EIS or Environmental Assessment (EA).
Today's proposed rule, if finalized, would harmonize EPA's reforms with those underway across the federal government. EPA developed its updates in alignment with the NEPA procedures of agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Defense, and Transportation, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — as part of the Trump Administration's whole-of-government push to streamline permitting and deliver efficient, timely environmental reviews.
EPA's action follows direction from President Trump's Unleashing American Energy Executive Order, Congress's Working Families Tax Cut and the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County. Together, these proposed reforms, if finalized, seek to ensure EPA complies with NEPA as Congress intended, refocus the agency on its core mission of protecting human health and the environment, and make it faster, cheaper, and easier to build in America.
Background
On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, to accelerate permitting and strengthen U.S. energy production. The order directed CEQ to issue guidance to federal agencies on implementing NEPA to expedite and simplify permitting, and to propose rescinding CEQ's NEPA regulations. CEQ subsequently rescinded those regulations, clearing a path for agencies to quickly reform their own NEPA procedures. EPA's proposal builds on this aligned, government-wide approach to deliver a simplified, streamlined framework for NEPA implementation.