What happened: The US Forest Service issued a rule that weakens the
requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to study
potential environmental harms from proposed infrastructure projects.
Why it matters: By weakening this science-based requirement, the Forest
Service has potentially opened national forests up to harmful industrial
activities. NEPA represents one of the most important environmental laws in the
US and the effectiveness of the law hinges on the requirement to conduct
scientific analyses to assess potential environmental harms from proposed
infrastructure projects.
A rule finalized by the US Forest Service allows the agency to
sidestep
requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to conduct
analyses that examine potential environmental harms from proposed projects like
logging, roadbuilding, mining, and pipelines. Additionally, the new rule adopts
a policy that would allow the Forest Service to rely on environmental
assessments from similar past projects, even if these older scientific studies
contain outdated or insufficient
information
for the new project.
The Forest Service
rule
states that infrastructure projects that cover up to 2,800 acres of national
forest land can be exempt from environmental analyses that are normally required
under NEPA. These exemptions, termed categorical exclusions, include six new
categories “related to recreation special uses, administrative sites, recreation
sites, and restoration and resilience projects.” Categorical exclusions are
projects that are deemed to have no environmental impact and therefore NEPA
analyses
– known as environmental assessments or environmental impact statements – do not
need to be carried out by agencies.
The absence of NEPA analyses also impacts the ability of communities to be
informed of and weigh
in
on proposed infrastructure projects happening nearby. Often, the only way that
impacted communities can learn about and provide input on an infrastructure
project in advance is when federal agencies carry out notice-and-comment
procedures for a NEPA analysis. The rule may especially impact rural and
Indigenous communities since national forests are more often located near them
and forests often support their livelihood and cultural traditions.
This is not the first time that the Trump administration has sidelined NEPA and
weakened its scientific and community requirements. In September 2020, the White
House’s Council of Environmental Quality issued a
rule
that enacted a one-to-two year deadline on environmental assessments, took away
requirements to consider climate change impacts, and reduced the ability of
impacted communities from having a say in permitting decisions. This rule was
considered a substantial change to how NEPA is implemented by the federal
government and was previously considered by the Union of Concerned Scientists to
be an attack on science.
The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of national
forests,
and it is estimated that forests are a source of drinking water for 150 million
people in the US. Forests can filter out sediments and pollution and therefore
serve as one of the nation’s most important
sources
of clean drinking water. By issuing a rule that allows the Forest Service to
bypass important scientific studies and community input on numerous
infrastructure projects, the agency is potentially endangering the ecosystem of
millions of acres of forest and is risking the health and safety of millions of
people who rely on forests for basic needs like clean drinking water.