JUDY WOODRUFF: As we reported, the Trump administration wants to roll back part of a bedrock environmental
law to make it easier to build certain infrastructure projects, like roads, mines and pipelines.
As William Brangham reports, industry has long pushed for these changes to reduce what
they argue are endless delays.
But environmental groups call this proposal a betrayal of the law's original intent.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Environmental reviews can seem arcane to many, but they can also be
quite consequential.
Perhaps the most famous case in recent years was the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline.
That battle has dragged out for years, and those environmental reviews were a crucial
part of the debate.
Now the Trump administration is proposing to overhaul the 50-year-old law that requires
those reviews. It's known as NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act.
Some of the biggest proposed changes would include exempting smaller projects from these
reviews at all -- projects that don't use significant federal money would also be exempt
-- limiting the length of many reviews to just two years, and allowing agencies to ignore
the cumulative impact of proposed projects, which could include a project's potential
contribution to climate change.
Amy Harder covers energy and climate for Axios, and she joins me now.
Welcome back to the "NewsHour."
AMY HARDER, Axios: Thanks for having me on.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, before we get to the administration's proposed changes, can you
just remind us?
This law was signed 50-something years ago by Richard Nixon. What's the intent, the original
intent of the law?
AMY HARDER: Well, this was signed in 1970, along with the creation of the Environmental
Protection Agency itself by President Nixon.
And the purpose of it is to make sure that everything that the government has a hand
in is good to the environment. So, whether it's a road or a bridge or an oil pipeline,
there needs to be an environmental review on that. And that's why both backers and detractors
in this law say it is one of the most litigated laws in America.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, for 50 years, this law has been in place, and if you want to do -- build
a bridge, dig a mine, you have to somehow prove on paper, here's what the impact of
my project would be?
AMY HARDER: Right. They're called environmental impact statements.
And if you were following the Keystone XL fight closely, as I was for the last decade,
you would know that that fight was all about the EIS and supplemental EISes and supplemental
EISes. There were multiple of those written.
And that's the argument that Trump and others have cited for reasons why this law needs
to be overhauled.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: OK. So, as you were saying, the Trump administration comes along and has
been hearing these complaints, as you're saying, that this causes endless delays, paperwork,
it's just really not worth -- it's sort of gumming up the works.
What are they proposing to change?
AMY HARDER: Well, as you said, initially, one of the biggest changes is to exempt certain
projects, the ones that don't require a lot of government funding.
Now, experts and others are still going through the weeds of what this proposal would mean,
but that could likely mean that things like the Keystone pipeline may not be subject to
environment or reviews at all.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Because there's no federal money or federal role in that, beyond permitting
it.
AMY HARDER: Right. Right, because Keystone was a project by a private company. All they
needed was the governmental approval.
And so that could -- that could be a sea change for oil and gas pipelines across the country
and other energy projects.
Now, I should emphasize that, with the announcement today, the president and others didn't focus
on oil and gas at all. They focused on other things that I think people care more about,
frankly, like highways and schools and things like that, that I think people realize and
notice perhaps more than a pipeline.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the changes, I know, is, they're also saying that reviews don't
have to necessarily look at the long-term, downstream consequences of a project, meaning,
if I want to put a bridge across a wetland or a pipeline across parts of Kansas, I'm
just looking at what that pipeline would do to the literal nearby territory, not what
it might mean five years down the road or what it might mean for a community in the
next county over.
Is that right?
AMY HARDER: Correct.
And so administration officials today were careful to say that the words climate change
actually aren't in the proposal at all, and that's correct.
But courts have traditionally interpreted cumulative effects to include climate change.
So by excluding cumulative reviews, they're essentially excluding climate change.
However, that doesn't preclude companies from going above and beyond and doing consideration
of climate change. And I think perhaps some companies will, but a lot of the smaller companies
or those who think they don't need to, they won't, and, of course, the government won't
be there to tell them to do that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you might expect, we have seen environmental groups across the
board, up and down, large and small, decry these proposed changes.
What's their principal concern with all this?
AMY HARDER: Well, I think there's a couple of them.
I think the first about the fact that this could exempt from entire environmental review
things like pipelines would be significant. Fighting pipelines across the country have
been a key environmental tactic since the middle of the Obama administration.
And so while Trump and other people today didn't focus on pipelines, that could actually
be a big impact to this law. And so it could leave environmentalists and others hamstrung
in terms of what they can fight.
The other, of course, is the actual consideration of climate change. I think some worry that,
if you don't consider climate change, will you build a pipeline where flooding happens
regularly? And I think, again, that that responsibility will fall onto the burden of the corporation
pushing the project, and will the corporation do it?
I think self-regulation is, of course, a very controversial thing. That has not proven out
so well in the past.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Is there a way you can help us fact-check the concerns that industry has
said all along, that this law really does gum up the works?
The administration pointed today to the example of a bridge, I believe it was, in North Carolina
that they argued took 20 years to build. Is it true that this law really does get in the
way of major projects?
AMY HARDER: I think, with a lot of things, it depends, right?
So I think, in some cases, yes, definitely, this law has been on the books for 50 years.
There's been, really -- I think, other than a 1986 change, there hasn't been a lot of
reform or reexamination of it. So I do think the administration is very much in the right
to say that there have been examples of where bureaucracy has been run amok.
Does that mean you do away with the entire law and make it so projects that don't get
government funding should haven't to be reviewed? I think critics would say that that would
be going way too far.
But I think, as with a lot of things in Washington, middle ground is not always what -- where
things end up. You either do extreme one way or extreme to the other. And I think today
we're seeing the pendulum of this type of regulation review being swung far more to
where industry wants it.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, as with all things, this is not the final word. These are proposed
changes.
What happens next?
AMY HARDER: Well, the next logistical step is to have some public hearings and then a
final regulation by -- before the election.
If a Democrat wins, you can be sure that this will be swiftly repealed. But, longer term,
this could invite even maybe more lawsuits.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Amy Harder of Axios, thank you very much.
AMY HARDER: Thank you.