Navigating NEPA Changes Across Federal Agencies: Congressional, Regulatory, and Federal Court Revisions and Rulings
Description
The beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term has introduced a substantial number of regulatory and legislative changes affecting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025 issued their first NEPA-related decision in over 20 years. These actions have significantly altered how federal agencies are directed to implement NEPA and have created substantial uncertainty regarding how NEPA practice will evolve across the federal government going forward.
Most significantly, in February 2025, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued an Interim Final Rule and then issued a Final Rule in February 2026 rescinding CEQ’s NEPA Implementing Regulations, which had guided federal NEPA compliance for over four decades. This action followed two major federal court decisions issued in late 2024 and early 2025, which held that CEQ lacked statutory authority to issue binding NEPA regulations because Congress never explicitly delegated that authority within the NEPA statute.
In response, CEQ issued guidance memoranda directing agencies on how to comply with NEPA during a one-year transition period while agencies revise, adopt, or establish their own agency-specific NEPA procedures and regulations. Since then, federal departments and agencies across the government have begun issuing major revisions to their NEPA implementing procedures and regulations, guidance documents, categorical exclusions, and administrative processes.
These changes have been particularly significant within agencies such as:
• Department of Defense (DOD)
• Department of the Interior (DOI)
• Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Department of Energy (DOE)
• Department of Transportation (DOT)
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
• Additional federal agencies with NEPA responsibilities
While some agencies have issued broad department-wide NEPA procedures, others have revised bureau-specific guidance, revised or reissued portions of their former regulations, republished procedures, rescinded prior direction, adopted new categorical exclusion procedures, or significantly changed documentation requirements and decision-making frameworks. In addition, several (such as DOI and USDA) have already updated in early 2026 the revised procedures and regulations they issued in summer 2025. As a result, NEPA practitioners working across multiple agencies now face a rapidly evolving and increasingly fragmented regulatory environment.
These developments build upon several years of substantial NEPA-related changes, including:
• Congressional Amendments to NEPA through the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, representing the first-ever substantive amendments to the NEPA statute.
• The Biden Administration’s “Phase 2” NEPA Rulemaking, which introduced major revisions that took effect beginning July 1, 2024.
• Reversals and modifications of the 2020 Trump-era NEPA regulations, particularly regarding climate change, environmental justice, and cumulative effects analysis.
• Recent agency initiatives focused on permitting reform, accelerated infrastructure delivery, adoption of artificial intelligence tools, digital environmental reviews, and process streamlining.
In addition to legislative and regulatory changes, several recent federal court rulings have had major implications for NEPA implementation government-wide, including:
1. Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Colorado, et al. (2025)
In their first ruling in NEPA case in 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal agencies do not necessarily need to analyze indirect impacts caused by separate projects beyond the proposed federal action undergoing NEPA review, and reaffirmed substantial agency discretion regarding what constitutes “reasonably foreseeable effects.”
2. State of Iowa et al. v. CEQ (2025)
• The U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota issued a nationwide injunction on the Biden Administration’s Phase 2 NEPA Rule.
• The ruling directed agencies to revert to the NEPA regulations in effect as of June 30, 2024.
3. Marin Audubon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration (2024)
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that CEQ lacks statutory authority to issue binding NEPA regulations.
4. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024)
• The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, limiting the ability of federal agencies to interpret vague statutory language without explicit congressional authorization.
5. Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2024)
• Expanded the timeframe under which plaintiffs may challenge federal agency decisions and rulemakings, including NEPA-related actions.
Given the scope, complexity, and agency-specific nature of these developments, NEPA practitioners working across multiple federal agencies must now understand not only the NEPA statute itself, but also how implementation procedures and regulations are diverging between departments and agencies in the absence of government-wide implementing regulations from CEQ.
This workshop provides participants with a comprehensive overview of the evolving NEPA landscape across the federal government, including comparisons between agency approaches, major procedural differences, implementation risks, and emerging best practices. The course is specifically designed to help participants understand how recent congressional amendments, court rulings, CEQ actions, and agency-specific procedures collectively affect environmental reviews, permitting, documentation, litigation risk, and project delivery across multiple federal programs.
While some implications of these changes are relatively straightforward, others remain uncertain and are likely to generate continued litigation, policy revisions, and implementation challenges for years to come.
Objectives
Upon completing this workshop, participants will be able to:
• Interpret the implications of the CEQ NEPA regulation rescission, recent federal court rulings, and congressional amendments across multiple federal agencies.
• Compare and contrast how major federal departments and agencies are revising and implementing NEPA procedures.
• Distinguish between government-wide NEPA requirements and agency-specific implementation differences.
• Identify key procedural, documentation, categorical exclusion, and decision-making differences between federal agencies.
• Develop risk management strategies for navigating NEPA implementation in an increasingly decentralized regulatory environment.
• Understand the implications of major Supreme Court rulings, including the elimination of Chevron deference and changes to judicial review standards.
• Evaluate emerging trends related to permitting reform, digital NEPA tools, AI-assisted environmental reviews, and accelerated project delivery initiatives.
Content
The basic format of this interactive workshop includes the following components:
Unit 1: NEPA’s Evolving Government-Wide Regulatory Landscape
• Overview of recent changes to CEQ’s NEPA Implementing Regulations, including the rescission rulemakings.
• Summary of congressional amendments made to the NEPA statute through the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and the budget reconciliation law in 2025.
• Comparison of Trump (2020), Biden Phase 1 (2022), and Biden Phase 2 (2024) CEQ NEPA regulations.
• Understanding the transition from centralized CEQ regulations to agency-specific NEPA implementation procedures and regulations.
Unit 2: Federal Court Decisions Reshaping NEPA Practice
• Analysis of key U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Court decisions affecting NEPA implementation.
• Detailed overview of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition ruling and its implications for indirect effects analysis and agency discretion.
• Implications of the State of Iowa v. CEQ ruling invalidating the Biden Phase 2 regulations.
• Discussion of the Marin Audubon and Loper Bright rulings and their implications for agency authority and judicial review.
• Implications of Corner Post for litigation timing and NEPA legal challenges.
Unit 3: Comparing Agency-Specific NEPA Procedures and Changes
• Department of Defense (DOD) NEPA changes and implementation updates.
• Department of the Interior (DOI) NEPA revisions and bureau-level implementation differences.
• USDA department-wide NEPA procedures and consolidation efforts.
• Department of Energy (DOE) NEPA updates and revised categorical exclusion approaches.
• Department of Transportation (DOT) NEPA and permitting streamlining initiatives.
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) NEPA implementation considerations and interagency coordination issues.
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) NEPA implementation procedures
• Comparative analysis of major similarities and differences between agency approaches.
Unit 4: Practical Implications for NEPA Practitioners and Consultants
• Managing projects involving multiple federal agencies with differing NEPA procedures.
• Risk management strategies during regulatory uncertainty and transition.
• Best practices for documenting compliance and minimizing litigation risk.
• Emerging trends involving AI, digital environmental reviews, automated document review, and permitting modernization.
• Anticipated future litigation, rulemaking, and implementation developments.
Audience
Participants for this training generally include resource specialists, environmental planners, NEPA practitioners, consultants, project managers, attorneys, interdisciplinary team members, permitting specialists, decisionmakers, and other professionals who work with NEPA reviews across multiple federal agencies.
This course is specifically designed for those who work for or with federal agencies, including cooperating agencies, tribes and tribal interests, contractors, project applicants, NGOs, state agencies, and consulting firms supporting environmental reviews and permitting efforts across multiple departments and agencies.
Process
This is an interactive workshop designed to build an overall understanding of how recent legislative, regulatory, judicial, and agency-specific changes are reshaping NEPA implementation across the federal government.
This workshop consists of a carefully designed combination of the following:
70% Lecture
30% Discussion
Materials
Participants receive the following:
Slide presentation handouts
Workshop Resources Workbook – includes relevant statutory and regulatory documents