Trump Aims to Reel in Climate Reviews While Courts Say Otherwise

The Trump administration’s plan to speed up project reviews for pipelines, mines, highways, and other infrastructure would scale back how agencies consider climate change in the process—running counter to a stack of legal precedent that’s been growing for years.

The Council on Environmental Quality’s Jan. 9 proposal to accelerate National Environmental Policy Act reviews says the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, and other agencies should limit their analysis to impacts that have a “close causal relationship” with the proposed government action at issue. The draft also directs agencies to halt their practice of studying cumulative impacts: a project’s broader effects ...