On November 20, the House Committee on Natural Resources passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, to reform the permitting and judicial review process for construction projects subject to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).
In early 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order rescinding all National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing regulations and instructed federal agencies to issue new procedures prioritizing “efficiency and certainty” in environmental reviews. The NEPA process has long been a procedural burden significantly slowing down the delivery of vital infrastructure improvements. Under this EO, agencies such as Departments of Energy, Defense, Agriculture, Transportation, and Interior began rapid revision of their agency‐specific NEPA procedures to streamline permitting timelines, remove duplicative analyses, and reduce administrative burdens. The Trump Administration’s NEPA initiative represents a decisive shift toward compressing environmental reviews for federal construction and energy projects.
The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has proposed another round of modifications to its regulations that govern how federal agencies assess the environmental effects of their proposed projects, programs, and permitting prior to making decisions. On its face, the proposal implements AGC-backed permitting efficiencies directed by Congress in recent statutory amendments in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 – including setting hard deadlines and page limits for agencies’ reviews, adding a process for a federal agency to use another agency’s categorical exclusion.