That law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), requires the federal government to consider the environmental consequences before approving infrastructure projects ranging from roads and bridges to oil and gas pipelines to solar farms.
But NEPA is a fairly sparse law, and for decades, the federal government has relied on White House and agency regulations to spell out how to go about doing those environmental assessments.
This week, the Trump administration rescinded all White House regulations directing the implementation of the law, including some that go back to 1978.
At the same time, in a memo sent to agencies, White House official Katherine Scarlett directed agencies to "continue to follow their existing practices and procedures" for the time being.
However, the memo also directed agencies to revise their processes for taking on these reviews over the course of the next 12 months.
Under the Trump administration, agencies are likely to take an approach that maximizes the speed of approving new projects and minimizes environmental considerations.
Last time Trump was in office, his administration took a nationwide approach that reduced consideration of climate impacts and also sought to block consideration of "cumulative effects" in neighborhoods that faced more than one pollution source.
The memo indicates that agencies should take a similar approach in their rewrites.
- "Federal agencies should analyze the reasonably foreseeable effects of the proposed action consistent with section 102 of NEPA, which does not employ the term 'cumulative Effects,'" it states.
- "NEPA instead requires consideration of 'reasonably foreseeable' effects, regardless of whether or not those effects might be characterized as 'cumulative,'" the guidance document continues.
The memo also directs agencies not to carry out an "environmental justice analysis," which looks at ways in which a new project may contribute to worsened conditions in disadvantaged communities that already face large amounts of pollution.
Despite these directions, Harvard Law professor Andrew Mergen says he believes that in practice, agencies will still have to consider the whole pollution picture.
"If they don't respond to the comments from affected communities, they are not going to be able to survive judicial review," said Mergen, who is also a former Justice Department official.
Read more at TheHill.com.
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