Bill Details
HR.573 - 119th Congress
Status
Latest action
2025-12-10 - Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Introduced Date
2025-01-21
Policy Area
Environmental Protection
Committees
View committees (2)
Sponsors
Cosponsors
8
0
0
AI Summary This summary was generated by AI from the bill text. AI can get information wrong.
This bill would require the Council on Environmental Quality and federal lead agencies to collect and publish yearly information about how the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is affecting federal projects. In simple terms, it aims to show how often environmental reviews lead to lawsuits, how long these reviews take, how long the reports are, and how much they cost to prepare. The goal is to give Congress and the public a clearer picture of whether NEPA reviews are slowing projects and what those reviews are taking to complete.
- Each lead federal agency would have to report every year on lawsuits claiming NEPA violations, including who was involved, which court handled the case, why the case was filed, and how it ended.
- The reports would also cover environmental impact statements from the past five years, including average and median page length, the length of citations and appendices, and how many reports were produced by each agency.
- Agencies would estimate the cost of preparing those environmental impact statements, including staff time, contractor costs, and other direct expenses where possible.
- The bill would require data on how long it takes to complete environmental impact statements over the past 10 years, and the Council on Environmental Quality would have to post the reports and supporting data online and send them to Congress.
Official Summaries
Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act
This bill directs the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to annually report on the impact of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) on projects that require NEPA review. CEQ must publish the report on its website and submit it to certain congressional committees. The report must include
- specified information about NEPA litigation, such as the number of cases, the status of cases, and their outcomes;
- the length and costs of the environmental impact statements and environmental assessments prepared; and
- the time it takes to complete environmental reviews under NEPA.
Current Full Text
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 573 Referred in Senate (RFS)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 573
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
December 10, 2025
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and
Public Works
_______________________________________________________________________
AN ACT
To require the Council on Environmental Quality to publish an annual
report on environmental reviews and causes of action based on alleged
non-compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and
for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Studying NEPA's Impact on Projects
Act''.
SEC. 2. ANNUAL REPORT ON NEPA'S IMPACT ON PROJECTS.
Section 201 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42
U.S.C. 4341) is amended to read as follows:
``SEC. 201. ANNUAL REPORTS ON NEPA'S IMPACT ON PROJECTS.
``(a) Submissions by Lead Agencies.--Not later than July 1, 2026,
and annually thereafter, the head of each lead agency shall submit to
the Council on Environmental Quality a report on--
``(1) each civil action alleging an agency action in
violation of this Act that was active during the period
beginning June 1 of the preceding year and ending June 1 of the
current year, which shall identify--
``(A) with respect to each such civil action--
``(i) the defendant lead agency, where
applicable, and each plaintiff; and
``(ii) the court in which the civil action
was brought and any court to which a decision
on the civil action was appealed;
``(B) the number of such civil actions,
disaggregated by the defendant agency, with a single
entry denoting the lead agency, where applicable, for
cases involving multiple Federal agency defendants;
``(C) the alleged basis for each such civil action,
disaggregated by covered sectors; and
``(D) the status and outcome, if applicable, of
each civil action alleging an agency action in
violation of this Act that was active during the period
beginning June 1 of the preceding year and ending June
1 of the current year, including whether--
``(i) the civil action resulted in a
decision to hold unlawful and set aside the
agency action within the meaning of section
706(2) of title 5, United States Code;
``(ii) the civil action resulted in a
decision allowing the Federal agency to proceed
with the major Federal action;
``(iii) the civil action resulted in an
order remanding the matter to the agency for
reconsideration without vacating the analysis;
``(iv) any claim under the civil action was
resolved by a settlement agreement or consent
decree between any plaintiff and the defendant
lead agency;
``(v) the civil action is still active; and
``(vi) any of the plaintiffs received an
award, including an award of costs pursuant to
section 2412 of title 28, United States Code,
except that if such information is received
after the lead agency submits the applicable
report to the Council on Environmental Quality,
the lead agency shall include such information
in the subsequent report;
``(2) the length of environmental impact statements made
publicly available pursuant to section 102(2)(C) during the
period of 5 years that ends on June 1 of the current year,
which shall include--
``(A) the average and median page count of all such
environmental impact statements (not including the page
count of any citations or appendices), including such
page counts disaggregated by quartiles;
``(B) the average and median page count of any
citations and appendices included in such environmental
impact statements;
``(C) the number of such environmental impact
statements, disaggregated by lead agency and subagency
as applicable;
``(D) a description of trends in average and median
page count of such environmental impact statements and
any citations and appendices included in such
environmental impact statements compared to prior
reports published by the Council on Environmental
Quality; and
``(E) for each report submitted under this section
through 2028, a disaggregation of the data from before
and after the date of the enactment of the Fiscal
Responsibility Act of 2023;
``(3) an estimate of the cost to prepare the environmental
impact statements described in paragraph (2), including--
``(A) the full-time equivalent personnel hour
costs, contractor costs, and other direct costs of the
lead agency that prepared the environmental impact
statement; and
``(B) if practicable, and noted where not
practicable, the costs incurred by cooperating
agencies, participating agencies, any project sponsor
that prepared an environmental impact statement under
the supervision of the lead agency, and contractors;
and
``(4) the timelines to complete environmental impact
statements pursuant to section 102(2)(C) during the period of
10 years that ends on June 1 of the current year, which shall
include--
``(A) with respect to each major Federal action
commenced during such period of 10 years, the date on
which (as applicable)--
``(i) the project sponsor submitted an
application for any permit or other
authorization for the project;
``(ii) the lead agency began the scoping;
``(iii) the notice of intent to prepare the
environmental impact statement was made
publicly available;
``(iv) the environmental impact statement
was made publicly available;
``(v) the record of decision was made
publicly available; and
``(vi) the lead agency provided to the
project sponsor notice to proceed on the
project;
``(B) the average and median completion timelines
during such period of 10 years for each document
described in subparagraph (A);
``(C) a description of trends in completion
timelines during such period of 10 years for such
documents compared to prior reports published by the
Council on Environmental Quality; and
``(D) for each report submitted under this section
through 2033, a disaggregation of the data from before
and after the date of the enactment of the Fiscal
Responsibility Act of 2023.
``(b) Publication and Submission of Reports by the Council on
Environmental Quality.--
``(1) In general.--The Council on Environmental Qualify
shall annually--
``(A) publish the reports received under subsection
(a) on the website of the Council on Environmental
Quality; and
``(B) submit such reports to the Committee on
Natural Resources of the House of Representatives and
the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the
Senate.
``(2) Inclusion in other reports.--The Council on
Environmental Quality may carry out paragraph (1)(B) by
including the reports received under subsection (a) in the
report submitted under section 107(h).
``(3) Public availability of data.--The Council on
Environmental Quality shall publish with each report published
under paragraph (1)(A) the underlying data used to prepare each
such report and include any citations or other information
necessary for the public to locate records related to the court
proceedings for any civil action described in subsection
(a)(1).
``(c) Format.--To the extent practicable, the information included
in each report submitted to the Council on Environmental Quality under
subsection (a) shall be disaggregated by covered sector.
``(d) Covered Sector Defined.--In this section, the term `covered
sector' means any of the following sectors:
``(1) Aviation and space.
``(2) Broadband.
``(3) Carbon capture and sequestration.
``(4) Conventional energy production.
``(5) Electricity transmission.
``(6) Forestry.
``(7) Information technology infrastructure.
``(8) Manufacturing.
``(9) Mining.
``(10) Pipelines.
``(11) Ports and waterways.
``(12) Renewable energy production.
``(13) Surface transportation.
``(14) Water resources.
``(15) Any other sector as determined by the Council on
Environmental Quality or lead agency.''.
Passed the House of Representatives December 9, 2025.
Attest:
KEVIN F. MCCUMBER,
Clerk.