The furious pace of White House actions that has marked the start of the Trump administration has only accelerated the last couple of weeks, including a number of policy shifts that impact CRM – not to mention increasing action on Capitol Hill.
Here are some of the major policy developments that ACRA is actively tracking:
NEPA Changes Imminent. As reported previously in the ACRASphere, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is expected to issue an interim final rule imminently that formally rescinds CEQ’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations and replaces them with non-binding guidance to federal agencies.
According to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) website, CEQ submitted a rule entitled “Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations” for final review on February 16, suggesting that it will be published in the coming days.
Although the text of the rule is not yet available, it presumably is in response to President Trump’s executive order “Unleashing American Energy,” issued on January 20. That order revoked CEQ’s authority to issue NEPA rules, which was first established in the Carter administration, and directed CEQ to issue guidelines on how NEPA is to be enforced by agencies.
ACHP Loses Members – and Possibly Its Independence. The Trump administration removed three members of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) last week, including its Vice Chair, leaving it unable to call meetings.
Executive Director Reid Nelson announced in a message to members this week that Vice Chair Jordan Tannenbaum and members Erica Avrami and Monica Rhodes were removed from the Council. In addition, two other Council members, Frank Matero and Mayor Randall Woodfin, resigned their positions.
With the Chair currently vacant and no Vice Chair, Nelson said that the ACHP is “unable to call meetings until such time as a Chair is sworn in after being confirmed by the Senate” or the President appoints a Vice Chair. To date, the President has not nominated a Chair.
The announcements come the same week as a new Executive Order that gives the President more control over independent regulatory agencies. The Order, Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies, requires independent agencies to submit proposed regulations to the White House for review and gives the White House the power to block such agencies from spending funds on projects that conflict with presidential priorities. It is not clear whether the Order applies to the ACHP due to how it is described in federal law.
Meanwhile, the Council has informed federal agencies, consulting parties and the public that federal agencies should follow the terms of any applicable Section 106 agreement that contains emergency provisions, when such agreements exist, for any proposed undertaking that falls within the scope of President Trump’s Executive Order Declaring a National Energy Emergency. The ACHP further instructs agencies that in the absence of such a Section 106 agreement, they “can avail themselves of the expedited emergency provisions in Section 800.12(b)(2) of the Section 106 regulations.”
Corps Lists, Then Pulls Back, List of 600 Fast-Tracked Projects. Reuters is reporting that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is revising a list of more than 600 energy and other infrastructure projects it had earmarked to be fast-tracked under President Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency.
According to Reuters, USACE “posted the list of priority projects requiring faster environmental approval review last week, without public notice. . . But the agency on Thursday said it will remove the list from its website database until it determines which projects meet the criteria laid out in Trump’s executive order.
Reuters noted that the initial list “included projects that had already been cancelled or completed, and dozens of renewable energy projects, which were not included in the national energy emergency order.”
New White House Council Tackles “Energy Dominance.” President Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 14 that forms a National Energy Dominance Council, whose purpose is to advise the President on “how best to exercise his authority to produce more energy to make America energy dominant,” including “improving the processes for permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, and export of all forms of American energy, including critical minerals” and achieving long-term energy dominance through, among other things, “cutting red tape [and] seeking to eliminate longstanding, but unnecessary, regulation.”
It is not clear how the Council will interact with other existing and newly formed White House offices and task groups.
House GOP targets BOEM Marine Archaeology Rule. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced last week a list of 10 Biden administration rules that the House GOP is considering overturning via the Congressional Review Act (CRA) in the coming weeks, including a 2024 rule from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) requiring archaeological reports to be submitted with any oil and gas exploration or development plan that lessees and operators submit for activities proposed on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
ACRA backed the rule because it will increase the likelihood that archaeological resources are located and identified before they are inadvertently damaged.
As previously noted in the ACRASphere, a resolution to overturn the BOEM rule was introduced in the Senate by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). Under the CRA, Congress can overturn certain regulations, and, if acted upon quickly enough, can do so without needing to overcome a Senate filibuster.
Senate Committee Starts 2025 Permitting Reform Process. Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began the fraught process of reforming federal permitting rules last week with a hearing exploring strategies for permit streamlining.
Members of Congress from both parties tried to seal a deal on permitting reform last year but fell short in the lame-duck session. This year, Congressional Republicans hope that with a Republican in the White House they will have a better shot at enshrining reform efforts into law.
But while some Democrats were open to a bipartisan permitting reform deal last year, most Democratic committee members said last week that they would not work with Republicans until the White House ends what ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) termed “its lawless disregard for congressional authority and judicial orders.”
Republicans will likely need the support of at least some Democratic Senators to overcome a filibuster.
Legislators Seek to Reform the Antiquities Act. Two Western House Republicans have introduced legislation to reform the Antiquities Act of 1906. H.R. 521, the Ending Presidential Overreach on Public Lands Act, would strip presidential authority to unilaterally designate national monuments and instead give that authority to Congress.
Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT), who introduced the bill with Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), said in a press release that “Congress, not the executive branch, has jurisdiction to make decisions on public land. My bill aims to rebalance the powers between Congress and the executive branch and restore transparency and accountability to these designations.”
Help ACRA Track and Address Policy Shifts
The current political environment in Washington is creating a great deal of uncertainty for many CRM firms, which is why ACRA is actively and aggressively working to monitor, analyze and address these developments as they happen.
ACRA welcomes information and perspectives from its members. If your firm is being impacted by federal policy changes, please let us know at [email protected]. Your reports from “on the ground” help us better understand the full scope of changes and how we can best help the industry.