Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act
The Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act would require the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to publish an annual, publicly available report on NEPA reviews and lawsuits alleging non-compliance. Beginning July 1, 2025, CEQ must provide detailed data on active NEPA-related lawsuits (including who is involved, where filed, and outcomes), metrics on environmental impact statements (EIS) and environmental assessments (EA) lengths and timelines, and the costs associated with preparing NEPA documents. The bill also requires a comprehensive list of categorical exclusions used by agencies and disaggregates all data by project type and sector. In short, it adds a broad, transparent accounting of NEPA processes, litigation, and efficiency metrics, published each year with underlying data. The bill redefines and expands CEQ’s reporting duties across several dimensions (litigation activity, document length and timelines, costs, categorical exclusions, and sector-specific breakdowns) and suggests publishing these data annually on CEQ’s website and submitting them to key congressional committees. It would also modify NEPA’s statutory framework to tie these new reporting duties to Section 201 and to adjust Section 204 accordingly.
Key Points
- 1New annual CEQ NEPA impact report: Starting July 1, 2025, CEQ must publish a yearly report on NEPA reviews and causes of action based on alleged non-compliance, with extensive data fields describing each active lawsuit, including courts, outcomes, and whether agencies moved forward or were restrained.
- 2Litigation data and outcomes: The report must detail the number of cases by defendant lead agency, the basis for each action, status/outcome (e.g., reversals, settlements, costs awarded), and whether plaintiffs secured costs.
- 3EIS/EA length and trends: The report requires average/median page counts for drafts and final EIS/EA documents, publication counts by lead agency/subagency, and trends compared to prior years.
- 4Cost and timeline transparency: The report must cover total costs to prepare EIS/EA (including staffing, contracting, and other direct costs) and, where possible, costs incurred by cooperating/participating agencies and contractors; it must also outline timelines for major actions (from initial permit applications through record of decision and notice to proceed) and provide averages/medians and trend analyses.
- 5Categorical exclusions: The report requires a comprehensive list of all categorical exclusions in implementing regulations for NEPA, including totals by agency and the number established or revised during the covered year.
- 6Sector-based disaggregation: Data must be broken out by defined “covered sectors” (e.g., aviation, energy, manufacturing, pipelines, water resources, IT infrastructure, etc.) and by project type.
- 7Public data access: Each report must include the underlying data and citations needed to locate records related to the court proceedings for each action described.