What The Hell America!

Over the weekend, the Trump administration appeared to begin the process of rolling back enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the “Magna Carta” of federal environmental law. In a filing submitted February 16, administration officials announced an interim rule titled “Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations.”

NEPA requires all federal agencies to consider the environmental impact of their work, including by submitting new contracts and permits to rigorous environmental assessments and public comment. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970 amid growing pollution concerns, NEPA was the nation’s first major environmental law, predating the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Project 2025 — the conservative policy agenda authored by Trump’s former aides — said that the government is “abusing” NEPA, and has called for severely limiting the law.

“Removal of all NEPA regulations is coming shortly,” tweeted Thomas Hochman of the Foundation for American Innovation, a center-right think tank, in response to the regulatory filing. “It’s an interim final rule, meaning that the administration does not plan on going through notice and comment first. Here we go! No turning back now.”

The foundation has said, “Donald Trump and J. D. Vance will bring to the White House a new set of ideas shaped by the dynamism and ambition of a new right-wing elite from Silicon Valley.”

The specifics of the interim rule have not yet been made public. The interim rule comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January called “Unleashing American Energy,” revoking the rulemaking power of the Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees the implementation of NEPA.

Pro-business interests have long complained that the environmental review process established under NEPA has hindered development and investment. Environmental activists, on the other hand, say NEPA gives citizens a critical say in which projects their tax dollars are spent on.

NEPA review standards have allowed hundreds of millions of Americans to review and weigh in on federal projects and partnerships ranging from roads and bridges to senior living facilities and outdoor recreation centers.

Considered the world’s first modern environmental policy, NEPA has been used as a model for environmental laws in more than a hundred countries around the world.

This isn’t the first time Trump has come for NEPA. At the end of his first term, the president tried to roll back environmental review requirements for infrastructure projects, but these changes were reversed by the incoming Biden administration.