The White House on Friday presented the proposal as streamlining the environmental review process necessary for new energy projects.
The proposed rule includes deadlines and page limits for environmental reviews that were agreed to as part of a bipartisan deal to lift the debt limit.
Separately, it direct agencies to consider environmental justice in their decisions and, for the first time, encourages them to take steps to avoid disproportionate pollution impacts on communities.
It also undoes a Trump-era rule the Biden administration argued made it unnecessarily complex for the public to submit comments.
“These reforms to federal environmental reviews will deliver better decisions, faster permitting, and more community input and local buy-in,” said Brenda Mallory, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a statement.
“This rule is a key element of President Biden’s permitting reform agenda that will help us speed the build-out of our clean energy future while reducing pollution and harms in communities that have been left out and left behind for far too long.”
Read more at TheHill.com.
