On April 30, 2024, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) revised its implementing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that undergird how federal agencies conduct environmental review of proposed projects. Consistent with federal caselaw, CEQ’s regulations emphasize the need to consider climate change and environmental justice impacts in environmental review, among other key revisions. These revisions are also consistent with suggestions that Policy Integrity has offered through our scholarship, reports, and comments on ensuring careful consideration of climate change and environmental justice in federal permitting. In addition, CEQ implemented several of Policy Integrity’s suggestions to enhance its cost-benefit analysis for this rulemaking.
This new rule complements a January 2023 guidance document from CEQ on the consideration of climate change under NEPA. That guidance also reflected extensive input and recommendations from Policy Integrity on issues including quantifying the full scope of greenhouse gas emissions, applying the social cost of greenhouse gases, and considering the impacts of climate change on the proposed project.