Legal Scholars, White House Spar Over Environmental Permitting Bid

The Trump administration’s plan to change the way environmental permits are issued for major infrastructure projects includes lesser-known provisions that would short-circuit environmental protections, some law scholars and public interest advocates say.

The proposal from the White House Council on Environmental Quality, released last week, garnered attention for deemphasizing the way climate change would be considered in speeding environmental permitting for big projects like roads, bridges, and pipelines under the National Environmental Policy Act.

But a deeper look at the proposed NEPA rewrite finds that another critical change would let companies take a greater role in contributing information for the ...