The June 3, 2023 amendments to NEPA draw on CEQ’s NEPA regulations, decades of Federal agency experience with implementing NEPA, and court decisions interpreting NEPA to make the law more detailed and specific. The amendments also direct agencies to take specific steps to make the environmental review process more efficient and effective.
View the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023
The FRA amendments:
- Require a Federal agency preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS), the most detailed form of environmental review for a proposed federal action, to discuss the proposed action’s reasonably foreseeable environmental effects; describe any reasonably foreseeable adverse environmental effects that cannot be avoided; and provide a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed action.
- Require agencies to ensure the professional integrity of the discussion and analysis in the environmental documents they prepare.
- Require agencies to use reliable data and resources when carrying out NEPA.
- Require agencies to study, develop, and describe technically and economically feasible alternatives to actions that would have environmental effects.
- Clarify how agencies should select the appropriate level of environmental review for a proposed action.
- Confirm that an agency is not required to conduct an environmental review when doing so would clearly and fundamentally conflict with the requirements of another law or if, by law, the agency has no discretion to consider environmental factors when taking the action.
- Codify longstanding practices for agencies’ use of “categorical exclusions,” which are categories of actions that a Federal agency has determined normally do not significantly affect the quality of the human environment.
- Provide measures to make environmental reviews more timely and efficient, including by establishing a framework for how multiple agencies participating in the same review should coordinate their work; prescribing page limits and deadlines for environmental documents; and clarifying how project sponsors and members of the public can participate in the review process.
- Clarify when agencies may rely on programmatic environmental documents—documents that review the environmental effects of an entire Federal program rather than a specific proposed action—in the environmental review process.
- Authorize agencies to adopt categorical exclusions that other agencies have established, when appropriate.
- Define key terms in the NEPA process.