The Interior Department is plowing ahead with plans to fast-track environmental reviews, directing officials to blow through what is often a yearslong process in less than a month.
But former federal workers and other experts who’ve long dealt with the National Environmental Policy Act — one of the nation’s most important environmental laws — told POLITICO’s E&E News that meeting the new timeline while still complying with federal requirements would be next to impossible.
The new 28-day standard could lead, these officials said, to analyses that contain little or no recognition of environmental factors on the ground. The move, announced last month, is part of President Donald Trump’s push to expand traditional energy development in the United States. It could remake how project reviews are conducted and set up new legal battle lines.
“It takes longer to get a mortgage,” said Jamie Pleune, a law professor at the University of Utah, who has studied NEPA permitting.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has touted the shift by saying the administration is “cutting through unnecessary delays to fast-track the development of American energy and critical minerals.” Burgum has also tied efforts to boost domestic energy to national security.
Though environmental analyses vary by project, the NEPA process directs agencies to assess the environmental impacts of a proposal. That could mean detailed studies of how a mine could affect nearby streams or how an oil and gas project could impact local wildlife populations. NEPA reviews may also connect with oversight wrapped up in other environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Depending on the scope of potential environmental effects, projects can be assigned a range of environmental reviews — the most extensive of which is an environmental impact statement. The median time to complete an EIS was 2.8 years, and the median time to complete an environmental assessment was 1.2 years, according to a study by Pleune and others of more than 41,000 NEPA decisions issued by the Forest Service from 2004 to 2020.
Under Interior’s April 23 directive, agencies should prepare those reports for selected projects in 28 days, preceded by a 10-day comment period. For projects with less environmental impact, an assessment should be finished in 14 days, with no need for a public comment period, according to the department.
NEPA is commonly understood to ask agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental consequences that stem from a project. But the 28-day time frame doesn’t seem workable to a number of experts.
“How can you take a hard look in 28 days?” said Ann Maest, a geochemist and environmental consultant who frequently reviews NEPA documents on behalf of environmental group clients.
Already, major streamlining has begun. This week, the Trump administration announced that a plan to reopen a uranium mine in Utah would have its federal permits processed in two weeks.
Maest said an important aspect of agencies’ work is establishing what “baseline” environmental conditions are at a project site.
That may mean visiting the location to count bird species that inhabit it, or reviewing what plants grow along nearby streams. If a project is proposed in the dead of winter, an agency wouldn’t be able to do that work.
Maest said that an agency could expedite its review and potentially get by on a tighter timetable in cases where prior research has been done at the project’s location. But if it’s a virgin site, they’d be “shooting in the dark.”
“This would just devastate the review process for transparency and engagement with communities,” particularly tribal communities, Maest said. “I think that might be part of the intent.”
The White House referred POLITICO’s E&E News to Interior for comment.
Interior spokesperson Elizabeth Peace pointed to a frequently asked questions document. In the document, the department says it will “comply with applicable laws and regulations” for NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act. The document also says the new review plan will “allow for alternative processes to comply with these laws during emergencies,” adding that the department “will continue to comply with all additional applicable federal laws.”
The fact sheet indicated that permitting could still take longer than 28 days if projects intersect with other laws. And it suggested that wind and solar had been excluded because they are not “reliable” forms of energy — a description that supporters of renewable energy dispute, citing widespread use of wind and solar energy across the country.
Recipe for litigation?
Environmentalists said the review process and its inclusion of public feedback often results in major changes to a project proposal — an undertaking that even companies will sometimes say leads to a better final product.
“The idea that you could compress a multiyear time frame for analyzing a complex mining operation into less than a month and still protect water quality and public health is absurd,” John Robison, the public lands and wildlife director for the Idaho Conservation League, told E&E News. “This is a recipe for either public health disasters or litigation.”
Maest cautioned that any companies that apply for the emergency processing could be putting a target on their back, signaling that they “want to take shortcuts” and that their project has had only a cursory environmental review.
In some cases, the lack of analysis could backfire on a company. If there are naturally occurring heavy metals at a project site, but an agency doesn’t have time to document them, Maest said, the company could later get dinged for causing the minerals to leech out.
Still, developers beleaguered by lengthy and sometimes unpredictable scrutiny that make investments costlier and riskier may see an opportunity in the Trump administration’s aggressive measures to favor industry.
“Some companies may be fed up enough with long permitting times that they’re willing to test the expedited processing,” Kathleen Sgamma, the outgoing president of Western Energy Alliance, said in an email. But some may still bet on the standard NEPA review process under a friendlier administration.
“I think most likely are willing to give the new administration the chance to get back to regular order on permitting now that they’ve started clearing out the intentional roadblocks from the Biden administration,” she added.
While the Trump administration focuses on American “energy dominance,” it has also overseen the loss of thousands of federal employees at land management agencies.
The Forest Service has parted ways with a quarter of its non-fire-related workforce. And some 1,100 workers have resigned from the Bureau of Land Management, according to The New York Times. Interior also froze personnel relocations recently as it prepares for further cuts.
Two former federal officials said they were puzzled by the administration’s rhetoric about speeding energy project approvals while at the same time slashing agency staffs.
“These two things do not go together,” said Mary Jo Rugwell, the retired state director of BLM’s office in Wyoming, who is now president of the Public Lands Foundation. “Current outflow of experienced employees is going to be a huge problem.”
Steve Ellis, a former deputy director of the BLM during the Obama administration who is now board chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, agreed.
“If they’re intending to follow the laws,” he said, getting a review done in 28 days “is going to be a heavy lift with the employee cuts.”
“There’s a reason that the agencies require these mitigations,” Ellis said. “Or you can end up with a mess that the taxpayers end up paying for, or environmental damage.”
Pleune said her research and Government Accountability Office reports identify a lack of staffing capacity as a primary reason that permits can take a while.
“If we do want to expedite procedures, I think the most important thing we could be doing is making sure we have enough staff,” Pleune said in an interview. “If you don’t give agencies enough budget and enough people with the expertise, they’re not going to be able to do their jobs efficiently.”
Forest Service loophole
Trump’s second term is not the first time his proxies have pushed to speed up NEPA. Republicans as well as Democrats have pushed for years for NEPA reforms to make the process more predictable, or to boost certain projects like renewable energy.
House Republicans are also considering legislation that would allow companies who pay a fee to receive expedited NEPA permit processing, as well as immunity from some environmental lawsuits.
In 2017, then-Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt directed the department to limit page counts and to target finishing NEPA reports in one year.
The new directive under the new Trump administration is 12 times faster than that.
It is unclear whether any companies will apply for the emergency processing. The eligible industries include coal, oil, gas, critical minerals, hydropower, geothermal and uranium — while excluding wind and solar projects. A memorandum explaining the process includes a one-page application that interested companies are asked to fill out and deliver to a local federal land management office.
The instruction from Interior will not apply to most of the 193 million acres of land managed by the Forest Service. Though it is the second-largest federal land management agency behind BLM, the agency is housed within the Department of Agriculture.
While Secretary Brooke Rollins has directed the Forest Service to boost timber sales and “remove” NEPA processes, so far those efforts have not included the monthlong review periods, an unidentified USDA spokesperson told E&E News.
“The Interior directive does not affect most Forest Service lands, however, there could be scenarios where BLM would lead a project review for leasable minerals,” the spokesperson said. “This would only take place after Forest Service completes a leasing analysis.”
Sgamma, with the WEA, said the planned timelines will be a steep challenge.
“I would agree that it’s difficult to accomplish legally defensible NEPA under these timelines and with the department’s resource constraints,” she said. “It remains to be seen how well President Trump’s energy emergency order provides legal cover.”
The industry still backs the thrust of the administration’s efforts.
“The Alliance appreciates the recognition that NEPA takes too long and should be done in a reasonable amount of time,” Sgamma said. “We’re encouraging BLM to use existing authorities under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to categorically exclude NEPA altogether in certain circumstances.”
Holly Hopkins, vice president of upstream policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement that the permitting system is “broken.”
“We welcome the administration’s focus on improving the permitting process,” Hopkins said.
But one former Forest Service geologist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said the proposal was not an improvement, but would instead amount to a checklist for reviewing projects without meaningful data.
“It’s just impossible for me to see how all the stars are going to align … to actually get completed in a 28-day period,” he said, adding that it would mean “you’re accepting everything the company submits to you and you’re not even asking questions.”
