Back in 1969, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), mandating environmental reviews for all major projects to determine their environment impact and allowing for periods of public comment. This has generally been beneficial, but it opens the door to lengthy lawsuits from environmental activists that can tie projects up in the courts for years. There may be some significant changes coming to the process, however, but only for certain types of projects. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has just finished what's being described as a "rule change" that will remove many delays and "streamline" the permitting process for energy projects. But there's a catch. The new rules will only apply to projects that "help the environment." In other words, just wind and solar projects favored by the Biden administration. Fossil fuel projects will remain bogged down in lawsuits as they are today. But can the White House even do this legally? (Institute for Energy Research)

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized a rule changing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to streamline permitting for infrastructure for renewable energy and transmission projects. NEPA, a 1969 law that requires environmental reviews for major projects, is a frequent focus of litigation that can delay construction for years. According to Biden’s CEQ, the Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule will facilitate agencies moving faster on permits for infrastructure that can help the environment, thus ruling out fossil fuel projects which supply about 80 percent of the nation’s total energy.  The rule sets deadlines and page limits for environmental reviews and establishes one lead agency to handle such reviews.

As part of the rule’s review process, climate impacts have to be considered as well as environmental justice — the movement to assist disadvantaged areas — and outreach to those places must be conducted.

This streamlining will take the form of deadlines for the completion of environmental inspections and restrictions on the length of completed inspection reports. The new rules also hilariously require considerations of "environmental justice." In other words, the project will need to address what impact it might have on lower-income minority communities. But if you're looking to put up your next gigantic wind farm in a more affluent, primarily white community, be their guest. Don't worry about informing the locals.

In terms of environmental protection, all energy projects should be treated equally, but that's not going to happen with the Democrats in charge. The exceptions to these rules are bogus right from the start because they are based on the pretense that wind and solar farms are "friendly to the environment." Try telling that to the flocks of birds who are chopped up in the blades of the windmills or the ones who die crashing into solar panels that look like windows or mirrors. There is one solar farm in Arizona that creates a beam of reflected light so intense that birds fry in mid-air when they fly through it. Of course, there are also schools of whales being killed while wind farms are constructed offshore. 

There should probably be a challenge to this new set of rules. It sounds as if the White House is rewriting a law that was passed by Congress without any legislative oversight of the changes. In some cases, "rules" are changed in how a law is interpreted by the executive branch, but you can only bend the rules so far before they snap. Joe Biden is likely aware that a change like this would never make it past the House GOP majority, so he's attempting to do it via executive fiat. But that means that the next President can turn around and undo it the same way.

This rule change has nothing to do with environmental protection and everything to do with politics. The "green energy" people still love wind and solar, even though they are pathetically inefficient compared to oil, natural gas, and nuclear. Biden desperately needs every leftist vote he can get in November, and this move is just more virtue signaling to appease that crowd.