"A federal court in D.C. has issued a ruling that curtails the White House’s ability to set government-wide rules pertaining to how environmental reviews can be conducted.
On Tuesday, judges with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) cannot issue regulations pertaining to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws.
NEPA is a statute that requires the federal government to assess environmental impacts of a range of potential actions, including allowing certain energy and infrastructure projects to move forward.
But, how it does so has long been up to the White House — though the court took aim at that longstanding practice in its ruling."