NEPA Is the Spotlight: FERC Overhauls Its NEPA Guidance to Streamline Permitting Days Before One Big Beautiful Bill Act Updates the Statute

On June 30, 2025, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued updated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rules and guidance that will impact the permitting process for energy infrastructure projects regulated by those agencies. Their actions respond to numerous recent developments regarding NEPA, including President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” and the Council for Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Interim Final Rule rescinding regulations purporting to implement NEPA. Their actions came days before the U.S. Congress revised NEPA as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which was signed into law on July 4, 2025.

Specifically, FERC issued Order No. 908, a Final Rule to remove references to now-rescinded CEQ NEPA regulations. It also released a Staff Guidance Manual on Implementation of NEPA (Manual) that outlines the updated procedures. The FERC Manual instructs the agency’s Staff and project applicants on:

• Authorizations to adopt categorical exclusions (CatExs) approved by other agencies.
• Submissions by natural gas and hydropower applicants on self-prepared Environmental Assessments (EAs).
• Reliance by FERC on EAs and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) approved by other agencies.
• Maintaining NEPA’s two-year EIS deadline.
• Removing requirements to consider climate change and environmental justice in EAs and EISs.

While FERC’s rule changes in Order No. 908 are mostly ministerial, DOE published a more fulsome update to its NEPA implementing regulations in an Interim Final Rule, and requests comments by August 4, 2025.

FERC June 2025 NEPA Overhaul: Key Provisions

Order No. 908 follows the Interim Final Rule published by CEQ on February 25, 2025, to rescind its NEPA regulations,¹ which fulfilled one directive in EO 14154, which also had directed federal agencies to streamline their permitting processes.² Order No. 908 removes references in FERC’s regulations implementing NEPA to the rescinded CEQ regulations and adopts the Manual as the primary framework for NEPA compliance. Even though historically FERC treated executive orders and CEQ guidance as non-binding on it as an independent agency, it had treated CEQ’s published regulations as binding. FERC adopted Order No. 908 unanimously. The Manual introduces several procedural changes aimed at expediting environmental reviews, discussed below.

Deadlines

The Manual retains NEPA’s two-year statutory deadline for completing EISs. However, within a week of its publication, the U.S. Congress amended NEPA in the OBBBA to create an accelerated review process through payment of Project-Sponsor Opt-In Fees. Under Section 60062 of the OBBBA, project sponsors may fast-track NEPA review by paying CEQ a fee equal to 125% of the anticipated cost to prepare the EA or EIS. In return, EAs must be completed within 180 days of payment, and EISs within one year after the sponsor notifies CEQ of its intent to prepare an EIS. An expedited timeline potentially could limit opportunities for public comment and stakeholder engagement. Applicants should consider the possibility of expedited environmental reviews in financing, construction and parallel permitting plans.

Categorical Exclusions

The FERC Rule allows the agency to adopt other agencies’ CatExs, which exempt a class of actions from EA or EIS requirements based on a determination that the actions do not have a significant effect on the environment. To adopt other agencies’ CatExs, FERC must consult with the approving agency and provide public notice in the Federal Register. Current FERC CatExs provide streamlined permitting for projects such as water power projects, small conduit hydroelectric facility exemptions, and offshore platform abandonment, among others.³ Under the new guidance, we expect to see this list grow, particularly for routine or lower-impact infrastructure projects.

Applicant-Prepared Documents

Pursuant to the new rules, natural gas and hydropower applicants may prepare their own EAs or engage third-party contractors to prepare EAs or EISs to submit to FERC. This approach may lessen FERC’s internal workload, reduce backlogs and accelerate review times. It potentially allows applicants to have greater influence over the environmental reports.

Interagency Coordination

The Manual emphasizes early coordination with lead and cooperating agencies. It also allows FERC to rely on prior EAs or EISs prepared by other agencies or FERC staff when the proposed action is substantially similar, possibly accelerating review timelines. This approach may benefit projects that require multiple federal approvals by reducing duplicative reviews and fostering more consistency across agencies.

Climate Change and Environmental Justice

FERC no longer will consider climate change or environmental justice impacts in EAs or EISs, consistent with broader Trump administration policy.⁴ Several recent decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had scrutinized FERC’s review of environmental justice community impacts and this issue, along with greenhouse gas emissions upstream or downstream of the project footprint, had become a regular platform for challenging the agency review process, which Akin previously noted. For applicants, this change may ease permitting obstacles and expand the range of viable project locations.

DOE June 2025 NEPA Overhaul

The DOE Interim Final Rule rescinds many of the agency’s NEPA regulations and replaces them with NEPA Implementing Procedures. However, DOE retained regulations on CatExs, emergency circumstances and administrative exemptions from NEPA review. The Interim Final Rule also exempts Presidential permits from NEPA review, as such permits are “delegated Presidential action” and “Presidential actions are not subject to NEPA.” The Implementing Procedures aim to streamline environmental reviews by reducing EIS timelines from three to two years, limiting analysis to “reasonably foreseeable environmental effects,” adopting EAs, EISs and CatExs approved by other federal agencies and seeking to bypass the 30-day CEQ consultation for new CatExs when possible. The Interim Final Rule leans heavily into the May 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. As explained in a prior Akin client alert, the Court’s decision granted significant NEPA deference to agencies.

Next Steps

FERC’s revised NEPA framework complements FERC’s other recent efforts to expedite project approvals. These include actions taken by FERC in June to grant a one-year waiver of Order No. 871, which had implemented rules that delayed construction of natural gas facilities, and a two-year waiver raising the cost threshold for natural gas facility improvements requiring FERC approval. Notices of Proposed Rulemaking have been issued to make both waivers permanent. See Akin’s client alert for further insights.

Looking ahead, FERC’s revised NEPA procedures, along with changes made and proposed by DOE and other federal permitting agencies, are expected to accelerate project approvals, reduce administrative burdens and lower costs for both FERC and developers. While these changes signal a clear policy shift toward streamlining energy infrastructure development, project developers should still take steps to ensure that their permits are sufficient to withstand judicial scrutiny.

Akin continues to monitor developments at FERC, DOE and other federal permitting agencies with respect to NEPA implementation and related regulatory changes. For more information on the OBBBA, please see here.

^{1 90 Fed. Reg. 10610 (Feb. 25, 2025).}

^{2 Unleashing American Energy, Akin (Feb. 19, 2025), https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/blogs/trump-executive-order-tracker/unleashing-american-energy; Exec. Order No. 14,154, 90 Fed. Reg. 8353 (Jan. 20, 2025).}

^{3 18 C.F.R. § 380.4.}

^{4 E.g., EPA Terminates Biden’s Environmental Justice, DEI Arms of Agency, EPA (Mar. 12, 2025), https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-terminates-bidens-environmental-justice-dei-arms-agency.}