in effect
This is a final rule issued by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on January 8, 2026, making permanent an interim rule it had published in February 2025. The rule removes all of CEQ’s regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — the law requiring federal agencies to assess environmental impacts of major federal actions — from the Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR Parts 1500–1508).
The government-wide rulebook that CEQ had maintained since 1978 — covering how federal agencies must conduct environmental reviews, write environmental impact statements, and handle public comment — no longer exists as binding federal regulation. Individual federal agencies are no longer required to follow CEQ’s uniform standards and must instead rely on their own agency-specific NEPA procedures, which CEQ says remain valid in the interim. CEQ’s role shifts from a rulemaking authority that could bind other agencies to a purely advisory and consultative body that offers guidance but cannot issue enforceable rules. Numerous agencies — including the Departments of Defense, Interior, Transportation, Agriculture, Energy, and Commerce — have already issued or proposed their own updated NEPA procedures to fill the gap. CEQ received over 108,000 public comments on the interim rule but concluded that none of them changed its determination that it lacks authority to issue binding regulations without the now-rescinded Executive Order 11991.
Federal agencies must now conduct NEPA environmental reviews under their own procedures rather than a shared CEQ framework, which may produce variation in how thoroughly or consistently environmental impacts are analyzed across government. Project developers, contractors, and applicants seeking federal permits or funding will encounter different review processes depending on which agency oversees their project, with no single government-wide standard governing timelines, document requirements, or public participation. Members of the public, state and local governments, and tribal nations who have historically used CEQ’s uniform rules as a basis for participating in or challenging federal environmental reviews will need to engage with each agency’s individual procedures going forward.