in effect
This is an interim final rule (issued with a request for public comment) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, part of the Defense Department, published at 90 FR 29465 on July 3, 2025. It rewrites the procedures the Corps uses to meet its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) obligations when it reviews permit applications, replacing older rules that had been built on top of now-rescinded government-wide NEPA regulations. It took effect immediately on July 3, 2025, with comments due by August 4, 2025.
The rule deletes the Corps’ existing NEPA procedures (33 CFR part 325, Appendix B) and puts a new standalone regulation, 33 CFR part 333, in their place, while updating cross-references in parts 320 and 325. The new part 333 adopts features Congress added to NEPA in the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, including page limits and deadlines for Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements, the statutory definition of “major Federal action,” and set procedures for categorical exclusions and for applicant-prepared documents. It spells out specific Corps decisions that are not subject to NEPA at all — such as preliminary and approved jurisdictional determinations, decisions on whether an activity needs a permit, aquatic-resource delineations, and certain modifications of unimproved real estate — on the stated basis that the Corps has no discretion to weigh environmental effects in those calls. It newly extends the Corps’ NEPA procedures to cover “Section 408” permission requests (33 U.S.C. 408, from Section 14 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899), which had previously followed a different set of procedures. The agency says the changes respond to the rescission of the Council on Environmental Quality’s regulations, Executive Order 14154, and the Supreme Court’s May 29, 2025 decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County.
Applicants seeking Corps authorization for work in jurisdictional waters and wetlands — under the Clean Water Act Section 404, Rivers and Harbors Act Sections 9 and 10, and the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act — plus parties requesting Section 408 permission to occupy or alter Corps Civil Works projects, are the main groups whose reviews follow the new process. Corps District Engineers (or higher authorities when a decision is elevated) carry out the procedures. Members of the public could submit comments during the roughly one-month window, and the agency states that reviews already underway continue under the prior procedures.