Modernizing the Commission's National Environmental Policy Act Rules

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 25-217; FCC 25-47; FR ID 309129]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Modernizing the Commission's National Environmental Policy Act Rules</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC or Commission) seeks comment on how the Commission should revise its rules to streamline the environmental review process and promote efficiency and certainty for Commission applicants to encourage deployment of infrastructure, which in turn will result in more competition and technological innovation in the marketplace. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due September 18, 2025; reply Comments are due October 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by WT Docket No. 25-217, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Flynn, Competition and Infrastructure Policy Division, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, (202) 418-0612, <E T="03">Jennifer.Flynn@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), in WT Docket No. 25-217; FCC 25-47, adopted on August 7, 2025, and released on August 14, 2025. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-47A1.pdf.</E> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1998), <E T="03">https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1998-05-01/pdf/98-10310.pdf.</E> The Commission will treat this proceeding as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's ex parte rules. Persons making ex parte presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral ex parte presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the ex parte presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda, or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during ex parte meetings are deemed to be written ex parte presentations and must be filed consistent with rule § 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule § 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written ex parte presentations and memoranda summarizing oral ex parte presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's ex parte rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), we take a fresh look at our environmental rules to account for recent amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) under the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA). In addition, in January, President Trump issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14154 titled “Unleashing American Energy,” which called upon “all agencies [to] prioritize efficiency and certainty over any other objectives” in revising agency regulations implementing NEPA. In light of the changes to the legal landscape and consistent with the objectives of that Executive Order, we seek comment on how we should revise our rules to streamline the environmental review process, promote efficiency, and encourage deployment of infrastructure that results in more competition and technological innovation. We also take this opportunity to seek comment on whether there are parts of our environmental rules that are now unnecessary or outdated and should be deleted. Given the Commission's environmental rules are entwined with our historic preservation rules, we also seek comment on any impact to our National Historic Preservation Act framework and examine what rule changes, if any, might be appropriate. This rulemaking is a continuation of the Commission's efforts to undertake a wholesale review of all of the agency's regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. NEPA and Related CEQ Regulations</HD> NEPA was signed into law on January 1, 1970. NEPA requires federal agencies to determine whether any proposed Major Federal Actions (MFAs) will significantly affect the quality of the human environment and, if so, to assess those environmental impacts. The statute created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which assists with NEPA implementation across the federal government. Federal agencies issue their own NEPA implementing procedures in consultation with CEQ. This notice describes the FCC's NEPA procedures. Per the statute, after determining whether their proposed actions are MFAs and subject to NEPA, including the threshold considerations in section 106 of NEPA, an agency will determine the appropriate level of review. In general, agencies consult available categorical exclusions (CEs), which are actions the agency has determined normally do not have significant effects on the human environment, as an initial step in determining the appropriate level of review. MFAs not subject to a CE typically require preparation of an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS), depending on the likelihood of significant effects. Historically, CEQ has issued guidance and formal NEPA rules that other agencies—including the Commission—would adopt or borrow. Until recently, CEQ's NEPA rules were considered binding on federal agencies. CEQ recently rescinded its regulations but continues to provide guidance to agencies on how to implement NEPA and consults with agencies on the development of their NEPA implementing procedures pursuant to NEPA section 102(2)(B) and the President's direction in E.O. 14154. Recent developments from Congress and the Executive Branch have significantly altered NEPA's framework. These developments, principally intended to bolster U.S. leadership by accelerating the cadence and clip of domestic infrastructure projects, require federal agencies like the Commission to reexamine their NEPA rules and procedures. First, NEPA was amended substantially in June 2023 with the FRA's passage. Of particular importance, NEPA was amended to define an MFA as an action “subject to substantial Federal control and responsibility” as determined by the agency. The legislation also codifies exclusions from the definition of MFA. The amended NEPA also codifies various aspects of the environmental review process, including CEs, EAs, and EISs. In January 2025, President Trump issued E.O. 14154 titled “Unleashing American Energy” on his first day in office. Among other things, E.O. 14154 rescinded Executive Order 11991 requiring CEQ to issue regulations to federal agencies for the implementation of the procedural provisions of NEPA. In addition, section 5(b) of E.O. 14154 directs CEQ to provide guidance on implementing NEPA to expedite and simplify the permitting process and further to propose rescinding CEQ's NEPA regulations found at 40 CFR 1500, <E T="03">et seq.</E> Section 5(c) of the E.O. calls for the guidance and any resulting agency NEPA implementing regulations to “expedite permitting app ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 169k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━