CEQ Sends 2 Rulemakings to OMB – 5-8-25

Thursday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received two rulemakings from the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The two rulemakings are:

0331-ZA09, Guidance on Emergencies and the National Environmental Policy Act, and

0331-ZA10, Withdrawal of Interim Guidance (0331-AA06)

Neither rulemaking was listed in the Fall 2024 Unified Agenda and are clearly part of the new Administration’s attempt to dramatically reshape the government’s environmental agenda. With no listing in the UA there is no official listing of the purpose and scope of either rulemaking, but it is relatively easy to find the Biden Administration documents to which these are in response.

The first rulemaking would appear to address a memorandum from Brenda Mallory, the previous CEQ Chair, that was published on December 18^th, 2024: “Emergencies and the National Environmental Policy Act Guidance”. That memo provided guidance on how agencies should include environmental stewardship activities in their responses to emergencies “involving immediate threats to human health or safety, or immediate threats to valuable natural resources” that do not allow time to complete the steps outlined in the National Environmental Protection Act regulations. This actual guidance should be interesting since the new Administration has rescinded those regulations.

The ‘interim guidance’ mentioned in the second rulemaking was published on January 9^th, 2023. According to the preamble to that publication the purpose of the guidance was to “to assist Federal agencies in their consideration of the effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change when evaluating proposed major Federal actions in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)”. There is little surprise that the new Administration has little interest in such guidance.

As with the earlier CEQ rulemakings briefly mentioned in this blog, I do not expect to cover either of these rulemakings in any detail, as they are out of the scope of what I typically cover. I do expect to announce their publication (if and when) in the appropriate ‘Short Takes’ post.