Big Sky Times

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen has joined a coalition of 20 states in filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s new permitting rule, which mandates social, environmental, and race-based regulations for infrastructure projects. The Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) new National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rule is expected to increase costs for energy, delay projects such as housing, power plants, roads, and bridges, and lead to project cancellations.

“Yet, through this Final Rule, the Council seeks to turn back the clock and transform NEPA’s foundational purposes by undoing the modernizations and consolidation achieved in the 2020 regulations. The Final Rule violates the plain language and purpose of NEPA, its legislative history, and binding precedent. The Final Rule also lacks reasoned basis in the record and is otherwise arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (‘APA’),” stated the attorneys general in their lawsuit. “The Final Rule will add complexities and significantly exacerbate delays in the NEPA process and work against NEPA’s goal of encouraging balanced public engagement.”

Historically, NEPA has required agencies to consider significant environmental impacts before taking action and to present those views to the public. However, according to critics, the new rule transforms it into a substantive statute that imposes regulatory approval on entities for important projects as part of an effort by the Biden administration to accelerate an “energy transition” away from traditional energy sources.

Critics argue that this change creates an illegal double standard favoring projects aligned with the Biden administration’s climate change agenda while imposing stricter regulations on projects using traditional energy sources. Additionally, they contend that the rule violates both the Administrative Procedure Act and federal law requiring significant legislation to go through Congress rather than being enacted by unelected bureaucrats.