Eighteen AGs Support CEQ’s Restoration and Strengthening of NEPA Implementation

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson led a coalition of eighteen attorneys general in sending comments responding to the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ’s) proposed changes to its regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposed changes would restore provisions that were narrowed during the Trump administration. The changes would also require a number of new considerations to be included in NEPA reviews, including stronger analysis of climate change effects—including for actions that do not require an environmental impact statement—and evaluation of cumulative and adverse effects on environmental justice communities.The AGs supported these changes, but urged CEQ to go even further in “resolv[ing] all of the harms introduced by the 2020 Rule.”