(Washington) The government of Joe Biden announced Tuesday to restore the obligation for federal agencies to study all the environmental consequences of the construction of major infrastructure projects, including on climate change, reversing a reform carried out in 2020 by Donald Trump.
Posted at 11:09 a.m.
The announcement concerns a law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), according to which any major construction project in the United States – highways, pipelines, etc. – must be preceded by an environmental impact study, carried out by the competent federal agency.
In 2020, the administration of Republican President Donald Trump had limited its application, including the need to consider a project’s “cumulative” impacts (such as contribution to climate change), arguing that such studies were too complex and took too of time.
The Biden administration, which since taking office has reversed many environmental decisions made by Mr. Trump, has thus chosen to restore the previous rules.
Federal agencies will again have to assess the “direct, indirect and cumulative consequences of an action,” the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) wrote in a statement. This includes assessing “comprehensively the impacts on climate change”, as well as “the additional pollution released for neighborhoods already burdened by polluted air or dirty water”, he specifies.
The White House promises that this will not cause additional delays for construction projects under consideration.
This measure will “help ensure that projects are built in the right way from the start”, said Brenda Mallory, head of the CEQ, quoted in the press release.
The White House also indicated that it would “in the coming months” propose additional changes to this law, to make “further improvements for the efficiency of environmental assessment processes”.