WASHINGTON, September 29, 2023 – The American Petroleum Institute (API) today filed comments urging the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to reconsider its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Phase II proposal to provide greater regulatory certainty and ensure NEPA follows its Congressional mandate.
“A more durable and predictable NEPA review process is necessary for our country to build badly needed infrastructure of all types, including projects spurred by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act,” API Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Dustin Meyer said. “Unfortunately, this proposal risks doing the opposite by perpetuating or even worsening the unnecessarily complex and arduous process. While the proposal contains some well-intentioned components, it seems certain to stall critical projects, drain resources from agencies and courts, and in the end further entrench NEPA as the most frequently litigated environmental statute.”
Notably, much of the proposal seems to run counter to the meaningful NEPA improvements recently included in the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act. Those reforms reflect the increasingly broad understanding of the need to clarify and improve our broken permitting process, whereas this proposal seems to add further hurdles and uncertainty.
Since it was enacted over fifty years ago, the scope of agency reviews under NEPA has expanded dramatically, which has lengthened project review timelines; fostered confusion among project sponsors, regulators, and stakeholders; and resulted in conflicting and divergent judicial decisions. According to CEQ’s most recent calculations:
- The median length for a final environmental impact statement (EIS) is 447 pages, a quarter of documents exceeded 748 pages or more.
- The appendices for final EISs are no different, with a median length of 423 pages and an average length of 1,042 pages.
- A stark contrast to the lengths specified in the recent legislation - 150 page or less or a limit of 300 pages for unusually complex projects.
- The median time to complete an EIS is 3.5 years, with a quarter of projects taking 6 years or more.
While API supports several aspects of the proposal, including CEQ’s encouragement for greater use of programmatic review for broad federal actions, the current proposal undermines NEPA’s central purpose of facilitating “fully informed and well-considered” decisions and preventing preordained outcomes.
“To the extent CEQ appears poised to improve the functionality and efficiency of NEPA, those benefits appear intended only for those projects and industries favored by the current Administration,” Meyer writes in submitted comments. “CEQ cannot and should not attempt to address dysfunctional NEPA review processes for only those industries and projects that the current Administration, or any given Administration for that matter, favors in a given moment.”
The comments conclude by asking CEQ to “view these comments as reflecting our sincere interest in engaging with CEQ constructively in pursuit of regulatory reforms that will help ensure that NEPA reviews advance in a timely manner and without unduly delaying construction of our nation’s most critical energy, transportation, water treatment, and communications infrastructure.”
Click here to view a full copy of the comments.
API represents all segments of America’s natural gas and oil industry, which supports more than 11 million U.S. jobs and is backed by a growing grassroots movement of millions of Americans. Our approximately 600 members produce, process and distribute the majority of the nation’s energy, and participate in API Energy Excellence®, which is accelerating environmental and safety progress by fostering new technologies and transparent reporting. API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization and has developed more than 800 standards to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability.
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