CEQ Fixes Decades-Long Permitting Failure Through Deregulation
President Trump’s deregulation effort has already delivered permitting reform.
Today, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) took the final administrative action to complete one of the Trump Administration’s most significant deregulatory efforts, affirming the removal of CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing regulations. CEQ rescinded these regulations last year; this final rule reaffirms that rescission and responds to comments received on the initial action. This final rule is now available for public inspection here, ahead of its forthcoming official publication in the Federal Register.
On February 25, 2025, CEQ published an Interim Final Rule (IFR), which went into effect on April 11, removing its NEPA regulations pursuant to President Trump’s direction in his day-one Unleashing American Energy Executive Order to expedite and simplify the permitting process. In the Executive Order, President Trump revoked the 1977 Carter-era Executive Order that directed CEQ to issue Federal government-wide NEPA regulations. President Trump directed CEQ to instead return to its core statutory mission of consulting with agencies to ensure that their agency-specific NEPA implementing procedures comply with the policies of the United States and the text of the Congressional statute. Today’s final action responds to public comments received on the IFR and reaffirms this removal of CEQ’s regulations.
“In this Administration, NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror has ended,” said Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Katherine Scarlett. “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, CEQ acted early to slash needless layering of bureaucratic burden and restore common sense to the environmental review and permitting process. The Trump CEQ is putting the American people first by cutting red tape that has held back growth of the U.S. economy and refocusing its attention on ensuring the certainty needed in the permitting process to invest in American infrastructure. Renewing our energy and other infrastructure will lead to job creation, energy dominance, economic growth, and better environmental outcomes.”
This deregulation has already cleared a path for Federal agencies to speedily reform their own NEPA procedures—many of which had not been updated in decades. On June 30, 2025, major permitting agencies across the Executive Branch updated their respective NEPA implementing procedures to simplify this overly burdensome process and ensure efficient and timely environmental consideration.
CEQ continues with its core statutory mission of consulting and coordinating with other Federal agencies as they revise their NEPA procedures in line with the statute as amended and with President Trump’s policies, providing guidance on the modernization of NEPA to ensure consistency across agencies. CEQ offers implementation guidance, a procedures template, and flowchart to streamline NEPA reviews. Today’s action delivers on President Trump’s promise to fix a broken permitting system while preserving clean air, water, and land for all Americans.
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