Revision of National Environmental Policy Act Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Highway Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>23 CFR Part 771</CFR> <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 264</CFR> <SUBAGY>Federal Transit Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FHWA-2025-0007]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2125-AF80</RIN> <RIN>RIN 2130-AD05</RIN> <RIN>RIN 2132-AB51</RIN> <SUBJECT>Revision of National Environmental Policy Act Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule. <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FHWA, FRA, and FTA are publishing this interim final rule (IFR) to modify the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that apply to all three agencies to be consistent with the removal of regulations previously issued by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the amendments to NEPA included in the section of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 known as the Building United States Infrastructure through Limited Delays and Efficient Reviews (BUILDER) Act of 2023, and amendments regarding efficient environmental reviews included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. This rule will become effective immediately while the agencies seek comment on what further changes may be appropriate. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective on July 3, 2025. Comments must be received on or before August 4, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number FHWA-2025-0007 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">E-Gov Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. DOT Docket Management System: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Submissions must include the agency name, docket number (FHWA-2025-0007), and Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for this rulemaking (2125-AF80). If you submit your comments by mail, submit two copies. If you wish to receive confirmation that your comments have been received, include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may submit comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> DOT solicits comments from the public to inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.</E> To facilitate comment tracking and response, we encourage commenters to provide their name, or the name of their organization; however, submission of names is completely optional. Whether or not commenters identify themselves, all timely comments will be fully considered. If you wish to provide comments containing proprietary or confidential information, please contact the agency for alternate submission instructions. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. Alternatively, you may review the documents in person at the street address listed above. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For FHWA: Megan Cogburn, Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty, (202) 893-5850, or via email at <E T="03">Megan.Cogburn@dot.gov;</E> Diane Mobley, Office of Chief Counsel, (202) 366-1366, or via email at <E T="03">Diane.Mobley@dot.gov;</E> For FRA: Lana Lau, Office of Environmental Program Management, (202) 923-5314, or via email at <E T="03">Lana.Lau@dot.gov;</E> Faris Mohammed, Office of Chief Counsel, (202) 763-3230, or via email at <E T="03">Faris.Mohammed@dot.gov;</E> For FTA: Megan Blum, Office of Environmental Policy and Programs, (202) 809-4701, or via email at <E T="03">Megan.Blum@dot.gov;</E> Mark Montgomery, Office of Chief Counsel, (505) 820-2061, or via email at <E T="03">mark.montgomery@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Access and Filing</HD> This document and all comments received may be viewed online through the Federal eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the docket number listed above. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are also available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> An electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded from the Office of the Federal Register's website at <E T="03">www.FederalRegister.gov</E> and the Government Publishing Office's website at <E T="03">www.GovInfo.gov.</E> All comments received before the close of business on the comment closing date indicated above will be considered and will be available for examination in the docket at the above address. Comments received after the comment closing date will be filed in the docket and will be considered to the extent practicable. In addition to late comments, the agencies will also continue to file relevant information in the docket as it becomes available after the comment period closing date, and interested persons should continue to examine the docket for new material. A final rule may be published at any time after close of the comment period and after DOT has had the opportunity to review the comments submitted. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> FHWA, FRA, and FTA are publishing this interim final rule (IFR) modifying their implementing regulations (Part 771) for the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. 4321-4347, as amended (NEPA). The regulations at 23 CFR part 771 were promulgated to supplement the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) NEPA regulations. Executive Order (E.O.) 14154, <E T="03">Unleashing American Energy</E> (90 FR 8353; January 29, 2025), rescinded E.O. 11991, <E T="03">Relating to Protection and Enhancement of Environmental Quality</E> (42 FR 26967; May 24, 1977),) which was the authority CEQ had relied upon to issue its regulations. The CEQ's regulations have been repealed, effective April 11. <E T="03">See Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations</E> (90 FR 10610; Feb. 25, 2025). As a result of the foregoing, the regulations at 23 CFR part 771, which implement NEPA for FHWA, FRA, and FTA, must be modified to remove cross-references to the defunct CEQ regulations. Prior to their removal, FHWA, FRA, and FTA followed the procedures contained in the CEQ implementing regulations for any topics not addressed by 23 CFR part 771. Now, Part 771 needs to be revised to stand on its own. In addition to removing cross-references to the CEQ regulations, this IFR revises 23 CFR part 771 to reflect amendments to NEPA included in the section of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FR Act) of 2023 known as the BUILDER Act of 2023, Public Law 118-5, Div. C, Tit. III, § 321 (June 3, 2023) (NEPA Amendments), which streamlines the environmental review process for Federal agencies, and to reflect amendments to Title 23 of the U.S. Code, Sections 139 and 203(e), regarding efficient environmental reviews, included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law 117-58 (Nov. 15, 2021) (IIJA). Consistent with the NEPA Amendments, for instance, the phrase “reasonably foreseeable” has been inserted before the terms “impact” and “effect” throughout the regulation. Footnotes were removed to reduce redundant information that can be found elsewhere. FHWA, FRA, and FTA have supplementary guidance on environmental documents and procedures for their programs available on the internet through the DOT Guidance Portal at <E T="03">https://transportation.gov/guidance</E> and <E T="03">https://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov, https://railroads.dot.gov,</E> and <E T="03">https://www.transit.dot.gov.</E> Revisions to specific sections of the regulation are identified and discussed below, as appropriate. The agencies intend to pursue a future deregulatory rulemaking to further expedite the environmental review process. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">§ 771.101 Purpose</HD> This section of the regulation is revised to remove references to the CEQ regulations, as well as to modify references to authorities based on amendments to Title 23 of the U.S. Code in the IIJA. Reference to 23 U.S.C. 203(e) has been added to reflect IIJA amendments relating to NEPA implementation and the Federal Lands Transportation Program. Reference to 23 U.S.C. 325 is removed as the statute is repealed. Reference to 49 U.S.C. 5323(c) has also been added to clarify that the procedures set forth in 23 CFR part 771 comply with the statute. <HD SOURCE="HD2">§ 771.105 Policy</HD> This section is revised to reflect changes in terminology introduced by the NEPA Amendments. Section 771.105(a) has been revised to state “a single environmental document” in place of “the environmental review document.” Section 771.105(c) is revised to add “reasonably foreseeable” as the standard for evaluating the social, economic, and environmental impacts of a proposed transportation improvement. < ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 145k characters. 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