Over the past year, federal agencies have been reshaping their procedures for environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in response to several major legal developments. As we discussed in our prior alert, those developments included the rescission of long-standing regulations of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) that had guided agency reviews of projects involving federal permits or federal funding, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, 605 U.S. 168 (2025). Agencies have been responding to those developments by overhauling their procedures to make environmental reviews more efficient and flexible.
The US Department of the Interior (DOI) took an early step last summer by publishing an interim final rule that (1) rescinded most of its NEPA procedures from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and relocated them into the departmental handbook and (2) made a number of substantive changes aimed at streamlining environmental reviews. On February 24, 2026, DOI published a final rule and released an updated DOI Handbook of NEPA Implementing Procedures, responding to more than 6,600 public comments and finalizing its new framework.1
1. Transition From Regulations to DOI NEPA Handbook. The decision to move most NEPA procedures from the CFR to a departmental handbook (i.e., a guidance document) has practical implications. DOI has emphasized that the DOI NEPA Handbook can be updated more easily than regulations, giving DOI and its bureaus flexibility to implement policy changes more quickly. While this flexibility may be beneficial for agency efficiency, it also introduces the potential for inconsistency for project proponents seeking approvals from DOI bureaus.
From a project sponsor perspective, staying current on evolving policy guidance and NEPA procedures will be critical. In addition, as discussed further below, it will be important for project sponsors to consider the appropriate level of public participation in the NEPA process for their particular project to help ensure that DOI bureaus build a defensible administrative record in the event of future litigation.
2. What Remains in DOI Regulations. Consistent with the interim final rule, DOI is keeping a limited set of NEPA procedures in the CFR, including those related to emergency responses, categorical exclusions, and applicant- and contractor-prepared documents.2 Applicant- and contractor-prepared documents are likely to be an even more attractive tool for project proponents seeking to keep review timelines on track, and these regulations provide detailed steps for that process.
In response to public comments, DOI is also reinstating regulations on lead and cooperating agencies. These regulations clarify how roles and responsibilities are assigned in the review process and confirm that DOI bureaus may deny requests from potential cooperating agencies so long as the denial is reasoned and documented. While this discretion may provide for more efficient reviews, it poses strategic considerations about handling the participation of agencies that may have relevant perspectives and expertise. For example, under the newly decentralized NEPA procedures, projects that require approvals from multiple federal agencies may face potential challenges and inconsistencies in the administrative record, depending on the level of interagency cooperation.
3. Public Participation. Unlike the former CEQ regulations, DOI’s final procedures do not provide well-defined requirements concerning public involvement. Instead, DOI’s final procedures remain largely silent and hew closely to the limited statutory requirements. Accordingly, outside of a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement published in the Federal Register, DOI bureaus are not required to solicit public comment or circulate draft documents for public review (except as may be required by the Freedom of Information Act).
DOI emphasizes, however, that bureaus retain discretion to solicit public input and provides examples of recent reviews that have included public comment periods (even since the interim final rule was published). From a project sponsor perspective, it may be important to think strategically about public involvement in the NEPA process to help develop understanding about potential objections to the project and to build a defensible record that manages litigation risk down the road. This is particularly true for projects that involve compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and other provisions that independently require consultation or public involvement.
4. Expedited Reviews. The updated DOI NEPA Handbook adds procedures for expedited reviews under NEPA Section 112 (42 U.S.C. § 4336f). Under Section 112 and these procedures, project sponsors can pay a fee in exchange for an accelerated review schedule, under which an environmental assessment must be completed within 180 days after the fee is paid, and an environmental impact statement must be completed within one year after publication of the notice of intent.
Key Takeaways
Since CEQ’s regulations were rescinded, individual agencies have taken steps to fill the gap and define the contours of NEPA compliance as applicable to their agencies and missions.3 DOI’s final NEPA procedures, contained in both the CFR and the DOI NEPA Handbook, largely confirm the direction set last summer: fewer binding regulatory requirements, greater reliance on guidance, and increased discretion at the bureau and decision-maker levels. For project proponents, this approach offers potential benefits in flexibility and speed, but it also introduces certain risks and the possibility of variation across bureaus and other federal agencies or inconsistency over time as the DOI NEPA Handbook is updated.
Importantly, DOI has reiterated that its revised procedures will not apply to ongoing NEPA reviews for applications that are “sufficiently advanced.” Preexisting procedures will continue to govern those applications.
Additional agency updates to NEPA procedures are expected in the coming months. For example, we anticipate a final rule from the US Department of Agriculture, following up on its July 2025 interim final rule.4 While we expect a consistent trend in agency procedures embodying the administration’s emphasis on efficiency and streamlined reviews, there is still some uncertainty ahead as agencies and stakeholders alike learn to navigate the new landscape. And the more flexible procedures may be subject to more frequent changes.
As agencies and courts continue to adapt to the post-CEQ regulatory landscape, project sponsors should anticipate continued evolution and litigation around the scope and application of more flexible NEPA procedures. Moving forward, to help ensure successful reviews for project sponsors seeking federal authorizations, it will be critical to stay up to speed on updates to guidance documents (such as the DOI NEPA Handbook), bureau-specific procedures, other agency procedures and evolving case law.
