ConservAmerica Welcomes Update to NEPA Rules
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2020
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ConservAmerica Welcomes Update to NEPA Rules
WASHINGTON, DC – ConservAmerica today welcomes the Trump administration’s update to the rules governing how federal agencies implement the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).
The revisions will ensure that public infrastructure and important economic projects aren’t delayed to the point that they “wither on the vine” because of an unnecessarily burdensome environmental review process, said Brent Fewell, ConservAmerica general counsel.
“Environmental reviews have become an incredibly cumbersome and confusing process for many project proponents,” said Fewell, who served as an adviser at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the George W. Bush administration. “Too often, the long delays caused by appeals and litigation under NEPA drive investors away and eventually cause projects to wither on the vine.”
The new rules will ensure environmental reviews and authorization decisions involving multiple federal agencies are done in a manner that reduces unnecessary burdens and delays, including improving coordination between agencies to simplify and accelerate the review process.
While NEPA provides essential safeguards to ensure federal agencies carefully consider environmental impacts, the process has become a tangle of bureaucratic red tape and now extends far beyond what Congress originally intended. Before today, the rules for carrying out NEPA were last adjusted in 1978.
“Our environment is far cleaner, and the federal government’s actions are far more environmentally mindful than they were five decades ago when NEPA was first signed into law,” Fewell said. “Much of that progress is because of environmental laws like NEPA.”
ConservAmerica has a history as an organization of supporting the Trump administration’s efforts to modernize the NEPA process to ensure that public infrastructure and economic projects can move forward:
In February, ConservAmerica co-hosted a webinar on the history and future of NEPA with the Federalist Society;
In March, ConservAmerica submitted written comments by NYU Law professor and Hoover Institute Senior Fellow Richard Epstein on the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) proposed revisions to the NEPA, and;
In May, ConservAmerica released a full policy report on the need for reforms for how agencies carry out environmental reviews.
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ConservAmerica is a nonprofit organization that advocates for balanced market-based solutions to conservation, environmental, and energy challenges. Visit us at ConservAmerica and follow us on Twitter @ConservAmerica and Facebook
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