Prof. James Coleman Quoted by E&E News About Trump Administration Actions Affecting the Council on Environmental Quality

Professor James Coleman was interviewed by E&E News by Politico about the authority of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and how certain actions by the Trump administration will affect it. The administration is moving to pull back almost five decades’ of rules crafted and imposed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The White House signaled it plans to issue an interim final rule to rescind all regulations that the CEQ has issued to implement the law since 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed an order directing the agency to issue rules under NEPA. Legal experts say the move isn’t surprising given that questions about CEQ’s authority to issue regulations have long loomed over the agency. Prof. Coleman said, “I’m not alarmed. This is more bringing the CEQ practice in line with the current Supreme Court thinking about when agencies have the authority to issue regulations.” He said he’s also waiting to see the text of the CEQ guidance and noted that agencies have their own NEPA regulations. The courts, he said, will eventually have to decide whether they’re going to follow past precedent, which has fueled a lengthy NEPA process, or will take a fresh look at the underlying law. Prof. Coleman added, “It offers a degree of freedom for judges who want to do so to basically reconsider some of the precedents that have got us to the position where environmental reviews and permitting take so long.”