Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act

Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act or the SPEED Act

This bill limits the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and modifies the environmental review of major federal actions under NEPA to generally limit the number of federal actions that trigger NEPA review and to expedite the review process.

For example, the bill redefines major federal actions, including to specify that an agency may not determine that an action is a major federal action based solely on the provision of federal funds.

It also excludes from the requirement for NEPA review certain proposed agency actions that have already been reviewed under another federal, state, or tribal environmental review statute that meets the requirements of NEPA.

The bill directs an agency, when preparing an environmental document for a proposed agency action, to consider only those effects proximately caused by the immediate project or action under consideration. Agencies may not consider effects that are speculative, attenuated from the project or action, separate in time or place from the project or action, or in relation to separate projects or actions.

The bill modifies the requirement for agencies to prepare an environmental assessment to apply to agency actions that are not likely to have a reasonably foreseeable significant effect on the quality of the human environment. (Currently, the requirement only applies to actions that do not have such an effect.)

The bill makes a variety of other modifications to NEPA, including by limiting judicial review of NEPA cases.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov