Over 50 Years of Environmental Protections — Gone Overnight

This Administration Doesn't Want You To Know or Care About NEPA

Post-NEPA Public Lands

On February 25, 2025, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) quietly detonated a bomb in the Federal Register: they erased every single regulation that has governed NEPA for nearly half a century. These regulations, crafted under Jimmy Carter in 1978, have been the law of the land for how federal projects assess environmental impacts — followed by every administration, Republican and Democrat, ever since.

Until now.

They didn’t tweak them. They didn’t amend them. They torched them. No replacements — just a complete wipeout of the rules that protected America’s air, water, wildlife, and communities for generations.

What Is NEPA, and Why Does It Matter?

Before we get into what just happened, let’s talk about why NEPA matters so much.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), signed into law in 1969 by Richard Nixon, is one of the most important environmental laws in American history. It doesn’t ban projects — highways still get built, pipelines still get laid, and drilling still happens. But NEPA forces the federal government to stop and study the environmental consequences before making major decisions.

Before a company or agency bulldozes a wetland, clear-cuts a forest, or dumps toxic waste, NEPA guarantees that the public has a right to know what’s coming — and the government has to consider safer alternatives.

It’s the backbone of American environmental law, shaping everything from clean air and water protections to wildlife conservation and public health.

For decades, NEPA was bipartisan. Nixon signed it. Reagan followed it. Both Bushes followed it. It was respected across the political spectrum because it brought basic accountability to government decisions — forcing agencies to weigh environmental impacts before acting. And for 50 years, every administration operated under the same foundational framework — the 1978 NEPA regulations crafted by Carter’s CEQ.

What’s CEQ Anyway?

Most Americans have never heard of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) — but for over five decades, it’s been the quiet backbone of federal environmental policy. Created under NEPA in 1969 and placed inside the Executive Office of the President, CEQ’s job was simple but critical:

• Oversee how NEPA is implemented across federal agencies

• Make sure agencies weren’t cutting corners or ignoring environmental impacts

• Coordinate environmental policy across agencies to avoid contradictory, piecemeal decisions

The Gold Standard Rules They Just Destroyed

Under President Carter, CEQ grew some teeth when Gus Speth, one of the most influential environmental lawyers of the 20th century, took the helm.

In 1978, Speth and his team crafted the first comprehensive set of NEPA regulations, laying out exactly how federal agencies would study, assess, and mitigate environmental harm before approving projects. These rules covered:

• What impacts had to be considered — air, water, wildlife, climate, public health

• When the public had the right to weigh in

• How agencies had to look at alternatives instead of just rubber-stamping the most convenient option

Let’s Be Honest About NEPA

And let’s be honest — NEPA has always been thorough. Sometimes frustratingly thorough. And that’s exactly why the companies now set to profit from this administration are popping champagne at its destruction.

Environmental reviews aren’t supposed to be quick or easy. When you’re talking about projects that could reshape entire ecosystems, pollute waterways, exterminate animals, or unleash toxic waste into communities, the process should be thorough. That doesn’t make NEPA some left-wing, tree-hugger straitjacket — it’s basic common sense, proudly signed into law by Richard Nixon for god’s sake.

NEPA doesn’t block progress — it demands we think before we plow forward. It forces agencies to ask: Is there a safer way? A smarter way? A way that doesn’t leave the next generation holding the bag?

If protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink slows things down a little, so be it. It’s worth it. NEPA has saved far more than it’s ever delayed, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something — usually oil, gas, or timber leases.

For decades, CEQ’s NEPA regulations gave us a consistent, enforceable framework to make sure projects were built responsibly, with public oversight, scientific rigor, and at least some shred of common sense.

Every administration after Carter — Republican and Democrat — respected that framework.

And now? They're gone.

Exercising Raw Power

In his first term, Trump’s CEQ tried to weaken NEPA, watering down reviews, cutting climate considerations, and limiting public participation. Biden reversed most of that, reinstating stronger environmental review requirements.

But now?

Trump 2.0, backed by Elon Musk and the architects of Project 2025, isn’t bothering with half-measures. This isn’t regulatory reform — it’s scorched-earth policymaking. They’re not tweaking the rules; they’re nuking them.

And let’s not pretend this is about “efficiency” or “cutting red tape.” This administration is stacked top to bottom with oil and gas executives — and even the head of the U.S. Forest Service is a former logging industry executive. These are the very people who stand to make billions off fast-tracked pipelines, clear-cuts, mines, and drilling rigs. They’re not confused about what they’re doing — they are dismantling every environmental protection standing between them and their next quarterly earnings call.

We know this because Trump himself told us. At a private campaign event last April, he flat-out asked oil and gas executives for a billion dollars — in exchange for wiping out every regulation they didn’t like. No pretense. No subtlety. Just pay-to-play environmental destruction.

And it’s not just NEPA.

Trump’s resurrecting the “God Squad” — a rarely-used panel with the power to override the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and greenlight projects even if they drive species to extinction. Once a tool of absolute last resort, now it will be weaponized to fast-track mining, drilling, and deforestation — because even extinction isn’t too high a price for corporate profit.

Why This Is So Dangerous

This isn’t just about erasing regulations — it’s about who gets to write the new ones.

By scrapping CEQ’s NEPA rules, Trump has handed total control over environmental reviews to industry insiders — the very people who’ve spent decades fighting these protections in the first place. Who do you think will be writing the new rules for what counts as an environmental review? Oil and gas lobbyists. Timber lobbyists. Mining lobbyists. The same industries that see clean air, clean water, and public lands as obstacles instead of responsibilities.

This isn’t just corruption — it’s the full hostile takeover spelled out in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for turning America into an industry-run libertarian hellscape. This plan isn’t a secret. They wrote it down. It’s the roadmap for dismantling every regulatory safeguard, gutting every agency with a shred of independence, and turning the federal government into a corporate rubber stamp.

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Once the Envy of the World, Now an International Pariah

For decades, America set the global standard for environmental protection. NEPA wasn’t just a domestic policy — it was a model exported around the world. More than 100 countries adopted their own versions of NEPA, along with other landmark U.S. laws like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — not because they were forced to, but because these laws worked. They balanced progress with protection. They proved that economic development doesn’t have to mean environmental destruction.

These laws didn’t just make sense — they made us leaders. The world looked to the United States to show how a modern economy could thrive without sacrificing clean air, clean water, and public health.

And now? We’re tearing it all down.

The very country that pioneered these protections—the country that once set the gold standard, the so-called shining city on a hill—is now a wrecking crew, smashing its own foundations. Instead of leading the way, we’re turning ourselves into a cautionary tale. Instead of being the example the world follows, we’re the mess other countries will point to when explaining why governments can’t be trusted to protect their own people, their own land, and their own future.

What Happens Next?

There's a public comment period—but you have to act fast. This rule was issued as an Interim Final Rule, meaning it skipped the normal public process and was quietly dropped in the Federal Register to avoid attention. But you can still comment before it’s finalized.

After that, each federal agency gets 12 months to write its own NEPA rules. And let’s not pretend there’s any mystery about how that’s going to go. Every single agency will gut what’s left of NEPA and install industry-written rules designed to rubber-stamp pipelines, clear-cuts, and drilling rigs. These won’t be environmental reviews — they’ll be permission slips drafted by oil, gas, mining, and timber lobbyists. The foxes aren’t just guarding the henhouse — they’re writing a self-serve menu and printing invitations.

Meanwhile, environmental groups are lawyering up because they know exactly what’s coming: a legal free-for-all. With no clear regulations, every rushed approval, every shortcut, every shady backroom deal will end up in court. Legal scholars are already predicting a litigation nightmare that could drag on for years — and leave agencies scrambling to defend decisions they never should have made in the first place.

This is what happens when you turn environmental law into a bonfire and let oil execs roast marshmallows over it.

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The Fight Isn’t Over

Let’s be clear — our land and our environment are the overwhelming underdogs in this fight. They’ve rigged the system, stacked the deck, and handed the keys to the polluters. But that doesn’t mean we roll over.

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.” – Abraham Lincoln

They want us tired, hopeless, and too beaten down to fight back. But this is our country, and I’ll be damned if I sit quietly while they torch it.

Here’s what you do:

• Submit a public comment — even though they’ll ignore it (feel free to copy and paste the template below)

• Back the groups taking this fight to court.

• Call your reps — not to beg, but to remind them we’re watching.

• Stay on top of all of the latest assaults on our lands – there will be many many more to come.

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Public Comment Template

I strongly oppose CEQ’s decision to rescind the 1978 NEPA regulations — a set of rules that have been respected and followed by every administration, Republican and Democrat, for nearly 50 years. These regulations didn’t block projects — they simply ensured that environmental consequences were considered, safer alternatives explored, and the public had a right to know what was happening to their air, water, and land.

The claim that CEQ lacks authority to issue these regulations is legally and historically baseless. CEQ’s authority to set uniform environmental review standards has been upheld for decades — and respected by Presidents from Nixon to Reagan to both Bushes. This isn’t about legality — it’s about dismantling environmental protections to benefit corporate polluters.

Abandoning these protections and handing environmental oversight directly to agencies now led by industry insiders will gut accountability, silence public input, and leave your own children and grandchildren with a weaker, degraded America — a country incapable of protecting its own natural heritage. The air they breathe, the water they drink, the landscapes that define this nation — you are trading all of it away for short-term profit.

As Theodore Roosevelt said:

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation…there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”

I urge CEQ to abandon this disastrous rollback and preserve the 1978 NEPA regulations in full. History — and your own descendants — will judge your choice.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

[Optional: Your City, State]