2. Executive Office of the President · Notable

Write NEPA rules that limit judicial review and remedies

Partially done

Printed page 60 2. Executive Office of the President

“It should frame the new regulations to limit the scope for judicial review of agency NEPA analysis and judicial remedies, as well as to vindicate the strong public interest in effective and timely agency action.”

What has happened

Apr 3, 2026 Partially done
The agency procedures written to replace CEQ's rules do narrow access to review in places. USDA's final NEPA regulations drop the requirement for a public comment period on environmental assessments — commenters warned this would bear on "waiving exhaustion of administrative remedies", the doctrine that decides who may sue — and the Forest Service proposed in February 2026 a predecisional administrative review rule whose section 218.16 provides that "any filing for Federal judicial review of a decision covered by this subpart is premature and inappropriate unless the plaintiff has exhausted the administrative review process set forth in this part." Real narrowing, in pieces, at agency level; still nothing on remedies.
- USDA final rule, National Environmental Policy Act
  Primary Executive branch Apr 3, 2026
- Forest Service proposed rule, Project-Level Predecisional Administrative Review Process — section 218.16, Judicial proceedings
  Primary Executive branch Feb 6, 2026
Jan 8, 2026 Not started
Moved nearby. The Council on Environmental Quality did not write new regulations framed to limit judicial review — it removed the regulations altogether. Its final rule completing the removal of 40 CFR parts 1500-1508 leans on the Supreme Court's decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, which issued a "course correction" directing lower courts to give "substantial deference" to reasonable agency conclusions, and reasons that Congress, the President and the Court have all now called for it; fewer binding regulatory requirements does mean less for a court to enforce. But this Quote asks CEQ to *frame* regulations that limit the scope of review and limit remedies, and a rule that writes none satisfies neither limb — it is the same instrument that delivers #86 (rewriting or replacing the CEQ regulations), doing #86's work. Real, dated, Primary action on this ask's own subject that is not delivery of it.
- CEQ final rule, Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations
  Primary Executive branch Jan 8, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Judgment call, revised 2026-09-01. The item stays at partial, but the rung is now carried by the 2026-04-03 event, not by the CEQ removal. On printed page 60 this item shared the CEQ final rule with #86 (“Reinstate the 2020 Trump CEQ NEPA regulations”, a major ask, partial) and sat on the same rung on that instrument alone — the mark of a Status inherited from a neighbor rather than earned. Re-read against its own Quote: a rule that writes no regulations cannot be a regulation “framed to limit the scope for judicial review”, so the 2026-01-08 event was corrected in place to not started, as action nearby rather than delivery, keeping its date and its Evidence. What remains partial is real and independent: USDA’s final NEPA rule (2026-04-03, checked as a final rule via the Federal Register API) drops the environmental-assessment comment period that bears on exhaustion. The Forest Service document of 2026-02-06 is a proposed rule (API-verified) and is cited as a lead within that event, not as the thing that carries the rung; the exhaustion provisions also restate existing statutory doctrine (7 U.S.C. 6912(e), 16 U.S.C. 6515(c)). Nothing in the window reaches the remedies limb at all.

Reviewed 2026-09-06. Status unchanged: the Forest Service exhaustion bar has not become final. The open question asked for the final rule “if and when it issues”. As of 2026-09-06 it has not. The proposal carries RIN 0596-AD69, and a Federal Register API query on that RIN across every document type returns exactly one document — the 2026-02-06 proposal itself, whose comment period closed on 2026-03-09 (per the Federal Register’s record for 2026-02392). A second query for every Forest Service final rule published on or after 2026-02-06 returns two documents, Definition of a Ski Area (2026-05767, 2026-03-25) and Land Uses; Special Uses (2026-05457, 2026-03-19); neither concerns predecisional administrative review. The proposed rule therefore stays a lead inside the 2026-04-03 event, exactly as the 2026-09-01 review left it, and the rung continues to rest on USDA’s final NEPA rule. Nothing in the window has yet reached the remedies limb.

Searched the Federal Register API full text for “judicial review” plus “National Environmental Policy Act” across final and proposed rules in the window (57 documents) and read the CEQ final rule, the DOI final rule (2026-03708), the DOT rule (2025-12364), the USDA final rule and the Forest Service proposal. DOT’s section 771.139 sets 150-day and two-year limitation periods but merely implements 23 U.S.C. 139(l) and expressly “does not create any right of judicial review”. #86 records the removal itself; this item is leveled on its own Quote.

Action: restrict
Object: Judicial review of agency NEPA analysis
ID: 87