This piece originally appeared at Green Tape.
President Carter’s 1977 executive order is gone, and CEQ’s binding rules are on the way out. But while this marks a major shift in CEQ’s authorities, it does not defang the agency.
In the seven-ish years between the passage of NEPA and the 1977 EO, CEQ was afforded, and leveraged, authorities provided by other executive orders and the text of NEPA itself. Now that the 1977 EO is gone, CEQ’s authority will return to that pre-1977 state.
So, in order to show which actions CEQ can still comfortably leverage to encourage streamlining across agencies, we have assembled a list of pre-1977 actions, examples, and legal justifications to provide a sense of what’s possible. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but will hopefully serve as a good jumping off point.
