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Dive brief:
- The Environmental Quality Council, a government body that provides guidance on the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, has launched the pilot of a technology platform to help federal agencies speed up the environmental review process, the White House announced on January 29.
- The platform, CE Works, will help agencies determine if a project is eligible for a categorical exclusion from NEPAaccording to the press release. Categorical exclusions establish if the actions do not have a significant impact on the environment and therefore do not require an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement.
- The move follows a push by President Donald Trump since last April who urged the federal government to do so review your environmental authorization process through technology and move away from paper-and-pencil-based application review processes to reduce unnecessary project delays.
Diving knowledge:
Trump has been vocal to allow the reform during his second term, and the push gained momentum after the Supreme Court’s May 2025 decision in a unanimous verdict of 8-0 in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. The sentence narrowed the scope of the agencies’ NEPA reviewsaccording to the Vinson & Elkins law firm.
“Henceforth, the Court was clear that it expects many technical, scientific and line-drawing decisions to be left to agency discretion and not second-guessed by the courts,” the firm’s lawyers wrote. “And the Court sought to end the vicious cycle of risk-averse agencies resorting to ever-longer review times and ever-longer NEPA documents to try to survive judicial review.”
CE Works will provide federal agencies with a digital pathway to apply waivers to thousands of CE determinations made through the projects, according to the release.
Caroline Sevier, managing director of government relations and infrastructure initiatives for the American Society of Civil Engineers, said the group is looking forward to seeing the results of the pilot. ASCE’s Infrastructure Bulletin 2025 He highlighted the use of new technologies to develop infrastructure more efficiently and effectively as a key goal, Sevier said.
“We think that any time the federal government is able to take advantage of the new technologies that are out there to speed up the federal permitting process, making sure that we’re maintaining that balance with the environment but still getting critical infrastructure projects done is going to be a positive step forward,” Sevier told Construction Dive.
The CEQ issued its Permit Technology Action Plan on May 30, which established minimum standards for federal agencies on aspects of the review process. These areas included data governance and usage standards, automated project selection and feedback compilation, and automated case management tools.
To develop the tool, the CEQ partnered with the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, according to the announcement. The council will also work with the Bureau of Land Management’s Moab field office to launch the pilot, with more agencies expected to partner in the future.
The federal government isn’t alone: At the state level, California has also tried to cut red tape for housing and advanced manufacturing projects.
In June, the state repealed provisions of the California Environmental Quality Actthe fundamental environmental law of the state. With the changes, certain types of projects are now exempt from previously required reviews. Aside from housing and advanced manufacturing, projects such as high-speed rail, housing for farm employees and certain wildfire risk reduction efforts qualify for the rollout.
