Today, as the climate and biodiversity crises rage across America, Reps. Westerman and Golden introduced the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. Under the guise of streamlining infrastructure permitting, the proposed law takes an axe to the nation’s bedrock environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Permit reform advocates have fallen prey to numerous myths that NEPA is impeding construction of roads, housing, and other infrastructure, yet data proves the law leads to better decisions and ultimately better projects. Instead of taking a reasoned approach to identifying and addressing specific permitting needs, this bill would open the door to plundering our nation’s resources on public lands and dramatically cut back the public’s ability to be heard during project development or to seek redress for violations of law in court. Last week, WELC led a coalition of 27 western conservation groups, authoring a letter to Rep. Huffman and the members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources advising all to exercise extreme caution on NEPA rollbacks such as this.
The sponsors’ press release bemoans NEPA’s “cumbersome and lengthy process,” which experts agree is rooted in chronic underfunding and under-staffing federal agencies—a problem created by Congress. The sponsors complain that NEPA “is currently the most litigated environmental statute,” but the fact is less than a quarter of a percent of NEPA decisions end up in court annually.
“The SPEED Act in this Congress is certain to virtually eliminate public participation and crucial environmental and health protections, opening the door to unchecked public lands exploitation without consideration of impacts to ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.” said Kyle Tisdel, Climate and Energy Program director at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The SPEED Act’s proposal to reduce the timeline for filing a legal claim from 72 months to five months would dramatically limit communities’ ability to seek recourse for harms to our air, water, and landscapes. This bill would provide near-blanket legal immunity to polluters for poisoning people and the environment.”
Congress has passed numerous updates to NEPA that are meaningfully reducing permitting times, such as FAST-41, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and others in addition to White House Council on Environmental Quality rule updates in 2024. Before creating a new fast-track process, we should see how all of these changes play out.
Significantly, by defining the law as purely procedural, the bill guts NEPA’s central purpose to ensure that all federal agencies consider the environmental impacts of their actions. For 50 years the law has directed agencies to consider environmental consequences of proposed actions, engaging the public and communities in that process to ensure that “to the fullest extent possible,” they “look before they leap” and make well-informed decisions that encourage harmony between human beings and the environment for present and future generations.
The bill also limits the types of projects subject to environmental review and eliminates an agency’s ability to consider the combined impacts of other projects, meaning environmental reviews will no longer fully inform the public. In addition, it takes away standard judicial remedies by eliminating courts’ ability to set aside agency actions that violate NEPA, meaning there would be no incentive for agencies to comply with the law. Moreover, projects would be able to proceed while any violations are corrected—tantamount to “bulldoze first, consider impacts later.”
We can improve the speed of permitting, and we already are. We must, because the climate and biodiversity crises demand swift and powerful responses. But we must not erode community and environmental protections to achieve this goal.
Contact:
Kyle Tisdel, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-770-7501, gro.w1753574376alnre1753574376tsew@1753574376ledsi1753574376t1753574376
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