The Biden administration released its final phase II rule updating regulations that implement the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), our country’s basic charter for the protection of the environment. This completes a multi-phased process to restore this foundational law, which was dramatically weakened in 2020 under the Trump administration.
The new regulations reinstate informed agency decision-making, transparency, and public involvement to their rightful places in the NEPA process. They require federal agencies conducting NEPA analyses of proposed projects to consider their ramifications for threatened and endangered species and habitat, climate change, and environmental justice, while also requiring meaningful consultation with impacted communities, including Native American tribes.
The move restores the public’s ability to raise concerns about destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity, declines in air and water quality, and harm to public health, particularly in communities of color, which for decades have disproportionately shouldered the burden of toxic pollution in their neighborhoods. AWI routinely relies on this law to provide input on administrative rulemaking and engage in litigation involving wildlife management.