The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Offers Expedited NEPA Review – For a Fee

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the “Act”)¹ signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025, creates a new path for expedited reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). In general, NEPA requires that federal agencies evaluate the potential environmental impacts of their proposed major actions, typically by preparing an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) or more detailed Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”).

The Act amends NEPA by adding Section 112, under which a project sponsor can pay a fee to have an EA or EIS completed under an accelerated timeline of either 180 days for an EA or one year for an EIS. A project sponsor seeking to utilize Section 112 needs to submit to the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) a description of the project and a declaration of whether the sponsor intends to prepare an EA or EIS. Within 15 days after the CEQ receives such information from the sponsor, the CEQ will notify the sponsor of the amount of the fee, which will be 125% of the anticipated costs of either preparing or supervising the preparation of the EA or EIS, as applicable.

The CEQ will need to work out the specifics of implementing the new expedited review provision. However, the net effect, particularly coupled with the Supreme Court’s recent decision limiting the scope of judicial review in NEPA cases as discussed in our prior alert, should be to reduce the time for some projects to be approved. It remains to be seen how the accelerated procedure will work in circumstances where the studies necessary to complete an EIS and review of the same have typically taken longer than the one-year period provided by the Act. For example, in 2025, the CEQ reported that, from 2019 through 2024, the medium time to complete an EIS was 2.8 years, with longer times required for more complex projects, such as large infrastructure developments.

See our alert [“Budget Reconciliation Bill Introduces Significant Restrictions on Clean Energy and Related Tax Credits”] for information on the impacts of the Act on clean energy and related tax credits. For information about the other domestic [“Key Tax Impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act”] and international [International Tax Provisions of the 2025 Reconciliation Act], see our related alerts.

¹ Public Law No: 119-21.

This memorandum is a summary for general information and discussion only and may be considered an advertisement for certain purposes. It is not a full analysis of the matters presented, may not be relied upon as legal advice, and does not purport to represent the views of our clients or the Firm. Eric Rothenberg, an O'Melveny of counsel licensed to practice law in New York and Missouri; John D. Renneisen, an O’Melveny senior counsel licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia; and Chris Bowman, an O’Melveny counsel licensed to practice law in California, contributed to the content of this newsletter. The views expressed in this newsletter are the views of the authors except as otherwise noted.

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