Reinstate SO 3355 streamlining NEPA reviews

What has happened

1. Feb 24, 2026 Partially done

   Interior adopted the interim final rule as final, and announced it as the rescission of "more than 80% of Interior's prior NEPA regulations", with the majority moved into a Departmental NEPA Handbook of Implementing Procedures. **The Handbook has now been located and read (read-queue ticket 07, 2026-09-06), and it carries the substance of SO 3355 on one limb and not the other.** 516 DM 1, the DOI Handbook of NEPA Implementing Procedures (February 2026), sets the same 150-page ceiling on the text of an environmental impact statement that SO 3355 set in 2017 (300 pages for a proposed action of extraordinary complexity), adds a 75-page ceiling for environmental assessments, and requires the Responsible Official to certify on the face of each document that the bureau prioritized within those limits. That is the page limit restored, by a Handbook rather than by the order. The clock is not: SO 3355 set a one-year target for an environmental impact statement, and the Handbook's deadline is the statutory two years under NEPA section 107(g) (42 U.S.C. § 4336a(g)), with one year only where a sponsor has paid the section 112 expedited-review fee. Nor did SO 3355's other half survive: it implemented Executive Order 13807, revoked in 2021, and the Handbook implements the Fiscal Responsibility Act's limits instead. The order itself was not reinstated and has no page in Interior's Secretary's Orders library. One limb of two, so `partial` stands — but it is now `partial` on a read document rather than on an unlocated one.

   • 516 DM 1, U.S. Department of the Interior Handbook of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures, February 2026 — § 2.4 page limits (150 pages, 300 for extraordinary complexity), § 1.5(d) (75 pages for an environmental assessment), §§ 1.5(e) and 2.5 deadlines

     Primary Executive branch Feb 24, 2026

   • Interior final rule: National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations

     Primary Executive branch Feb 24, 2026

   • Interior press release: Trump Administration Delivers Historic NEPA Reform — rescission of more than 80% of Interior's NEPA regulations, procedures moved to a Departmental Handbook

     Primary Executive branch Feb 23, 2026

   • Interior ELIPS Secretary's Orders library — the published series runs to SO 3453 and carries no page for SO 3348, 3349, 3350, 3351, 3354, 3355, 3358, 3360, 3385 or 3389

     Primary Executive branch Aug 27, 2026

2. Jul 3, 2025 Attempted

   Interior's interim final rule partially rescinded the Department's NEPA regulations and moved the remaining procedures into a Departmental Handbook outside the Code of Federal Regulations, citing the Supreme Court's holding that NEPA is a "purely procedural statute". A rewrite of the machinery SO 3355 operated on, not a reinstatement of the order.

   • Interior interim final rule: National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations

     Primary Executive branch Jul 3, 2025