White House to Ease Environmental Permits for Major Projects (1)

The Trump administration issued a proposal Jan. 9 to speed environmental permitting for major projects such as roads, bridges, and pipelines, seeking the most significant changes to the National Environmental Policy Act in more than four decades.

Key among the changes proposed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality are provisions that would require a project’s environmental effects to be “reasonably foreseeable” and have a “reasonably close causal relationship” to the project, CEQ chairman Mary Neumayr said in a Jan. 9 press call. The action drew praise from congressional Republicans and industry groups and criticism from Democrats and ...