U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Unveils Sweeping Updates to NEPA at USDOT to Fast Track Roads, Bridges, & Other Key Infrastructure

Reducing and clarifying regulatory hurdles will clear the way for economic growth

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today released three sets of landmark revisions to the Department’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures. These revisions, which cut USDOT’s NEPA procedures in half, will slash red tape, accelerate major infrastructure projects, minimize delays, and curb soaring compliance costs. USDOT has not initiated Department-wide NEPA reform in 40 years despite widespread agreement that these procedures are inhibiting the country from ushering a golden age of Transportation. Government-wide reforms in President Trump’s first term would have provided much-needed regulatory relief, but the Biden Administration reversed those changes.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, America is building again,” said U.S Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “USDOT’s NEPA reforms will make it possible to deliver roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure projects faster and more affordably. For too long, unelected Washington bureaucrats have weaponized environmental reviews to create endless delays and block projects. No more. These changes will help usher in a golden age of transportation for the American people.”

These updates combine six separate sets of procedures into one unified USDOT Order, providing a one stop shop for USDOT NEPA reviews for most of USDOT’s Operating Administrations (OAs). Two other sets of revisions include the NEPA procedures for FAA, and the procedures used by FHWA, FRA, and FTA. Across USDOT, OAs will enforce hard deadlines, simplify categorical exclusions, and hone NEPA’s focus—clearing the way for robust infrastructure growth and a revitalized economy. The effort is part of President Trump’s vision to unleash American energy and to reshape how these outdated, bloated procedures stop America from building great, big, beautiful things across multiple federal departments.

Additional Information:

The Department released three specific updates to its NEPA implementing procedures: (1) Department-wide Order 5610.1D; (2) Joint FHWA, FRA, and FTA procedures, 23 CFR Part 771; and, (3) FAA’s Order 1050.1G. The Department is issuing these updates in coordination with the White House Council on Environmental Quality in furtherance of the Trump Administration’s strategy to simplify the environmental review and permitting process and to ensure efficient and timely environmental reviews.

Key changes by USDOT and the other agencies include enforceable deadlines and page limits for environmental studies, clarifying that NEPA only kicks in when agencies truly control a project’s environmental footprint, and streamlined “categorical exclusions” that exempt routine, low-impact actions from lengthy analysis. The measures will fast-track roads, bridges, broadband and energy installations.

The revisions across USDOT include the following historic reforms:

• Implement deadlines and page limits on environmental reviews required under recent amendments to NEPA, to expedite infrastructure development and reduce costs.
• Provide clarification that NEPA does not apply to every action that a Federal agency takes, but only to Federal actions where the agency has sufficient control and discretion to take environmental effects into account.
• Ensure simple and expeditious processes to create categorical exclusions (CEs) (the least burdensome class of action), adopt other agencies’ CEs to minimize repetitive NEPA analyses, and focus agency attention on actions with truly significant environmental effects.

Prior to this update, some Federal agencies, including parts of USDOT, were utilizing NEPA implementing procedures that were nearly forty years old. USDOT’s NEPA implementing procedures were last revised in 1985. By modernizing the environmental review process, USDOT will cut through unnecessary layers of bureaucracy in record time, following clear guidance to reform the NEPA process set forth in President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy Executive Order; Congress’ BUILDER Act amendments, as part of the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act, and the Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has long been a leader in NEPA reform, and its actions today herald the Trump Administration’s decisive action to reform, modernize, and expedite the Federal environmental review process and eliminate unnecessary delays that are holding back the growth of secure and reliable infrastructure projects across the Nation.