Earlier this month, APGA joined a coalition of trade associations in pushing back on interim guidance from the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) pertaining to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The interim guidance, released in January 2023, impacts decision-making at all federal agencies, including those that APGA often engages with, such as the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Through the comments, several significant concerns about the interim guidance were raised, including how signatories felt it went beyond the boundaries of NEPA by:
1. Imposing additional information requirements, from technical requirements to contemplating consideration of indirect impacts with no reasonable boundaries,
2. Holding different types of projects to different standards of analysis, thereby picking winners and losers, and
3. Skewing the analysis to favor a particular outcome by establishing a presumption that mitigation will be required and certain types of alternatives will be considered.
NEPA is intended to help federal agencies assess the environmental impacts of their proposed actions prior to making decisions and is required for a range of federal actions, such as making decisions on permit applications. The proposed changes would pick winners and losers by not fairly considering impacts from projects, among other concerns.
The coalition was composed of 29 trade associations, which represent a diverse set of economic sectors. A copy of the coalition comments is available here.
For questions on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by phone at 202-905-2904 or by email at ekurilla@apga.org.