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Friends of the Earth celebrates the final federal rule renewing NEPA, environmental protection

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  • Friends of the Earth celebrates the final federal rule renewing NEPA, environmental protection

WASHINGTON – Today, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced its final rule restoring the 2020 National Environmental Policy Act rollbacks. The rule will officially restore the previous destruction of the nation’s foundational environmental protection law, and add climate change and environmental justice as factors that federal agencies must formally consider when implementing the NEPA revision.

CEQ’s announcement is the direct result of a 2020 lawsuit filed filed by a coalition of organizations, including Friends of the Earth, challenging the Trump administration to attack on NEPA. The lawsuit has been stayed pending CEQ’s recovery efforts. The 2020 attacks on NEPA sought to exempt dirty energy projects from basic environmental reviews and silence public input. Today’s rule completes CEQ’s two-phase approach to reversing these unlawful rollbacks.

Hallie Templeton, legal director of Friends of the Earth, released the following :

We commend CEQ for taking long-overdue action to strengthen and restore NEPA, our nation’s most critical environmental protection law. This marks a victory in our years-long lawsuit to overturn the rollbacks and will benefit frontline communities who rely on NEPA for a voice in the permitting process and for transparency around our government’s activities. While much more needs to be done to strengthen our nation’s environmental and environmental justice laws, this is a sure step in the right direction for protecting people and the planet.

CEQ issued are provisional version Phase 2 reign in August 2023, the last publication of which completes a 2-phase approach to restoring and strengthening NEPA. CEQ published the phase 1 rule in AApril 2022. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are revising the rule and determineing next steps for their lawsuit over the 2020 unlawful rollbacks.

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