States Filing in Court to Block New Federal Project Implementing Rules

Twenty states are now taking part in a lawsuit objecting to new regulations announced by the federal Council on Environmental Quality that impact the construction industry.

Those regulations, according to the White House, are supposed to simplify and modernize the federal environmental review process as it is enforced under the National Environmental Policy Act.

In a late April announcement, the White House said the new regulations include “setting clear deadlines for agencies to complete environmental reviews, requiring a lead agency, and setting specific expectations for lead and cooperating agencies,” while additionally “creating a unified and coordinated federal review process.”

But the lawsuit, with plaintiffs including the states of Texas, Florida, and Georgia, contends that the new regulations "insert many arbitrary mandates into the environmental review system with the foreseeable effect of delaying and foreclosing disfavored types of projects.”

At particular issue is a complaint against what is called a “government-wide approach to advancing environmental justice” that the lawsuit argues is “untethered to any federal statutory basis.”

The lawsuit has won the support of several industry groups, including the Associated Builders and Contractors, which has said that the regulations fail to "meaningfully improve environmental protections, and actually expands and lengthens environmental reviews that already take years.”

In a statement, Ben Brubeck, vice-president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs with the ABC, remarked: “Instead of moving forward with this burdensome final rule, the Biden Administration should work to streamline and modernize permitting processes while maintaining important environmental safeguards.”

Other voices, however, have argued that the Council on Environmental Quality’s implementing rule not only clarifies the environmental review process, but does so in a particularly timely manner.

“We are at a pivotal moment for climate action,” said Delaware Democrat Tom Carper, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “To bring more clean energy onto the grid, there’s no question that we need a more effective and efficient environmental review process.”
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The lawsuit on the part of the twenty states has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota.

​By Garry Boulard

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