In Further Trump Reversal, White House Moves To Put Climate Back In Infrastructure Equation

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2. All approvals are not legislated.

Since 1970, NEPA has protected air, water and land by requiring federal regulators to conduct detailed environmental assessments of major infrastructure projects. In 2020, the Trump administration finalized the first major update to the law in more than four decades, part of a broad administrative effort to fast-track energy projects and other development. Along with allowing agencies to ignore climate impacts, the rewrite largely cut out the public from the environmental review process. Critics condemned the rollback as an attack on environmental justice, as low-income people and communities of color are often most impacted by large-scale infrastructure projects.

The White House council’s new recommendations replace and build upon 2016 guidance from the Obama administration that the Trump administration rescinded shortly after taking office. Along with prioritizing greenhouse gas emissions in the environmental review process, the guidance calls on federal agencies to “identify any communities with environmental justice concerns” and to “consider how impacts from the proposed action could potentially amplify climate change-related hazards such as storm surge, heat waves, drought, flooding, and sea level change.”