Dive Brief:
- The Council on Environmental Quality, a government body that provides guidance on the enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act, has launched the pilot of a tech platform to help federal agencies speed up the environmental review process, the White House announced Jan. 29.
- The platform, CE Works, will help the agencies determine whether a project qualifies for a categorical exclusion under NEPA, according to the news release. Categorical exclusions establish if actions do not have a significant impact on the environment and thus don’t require an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement.
- The move follows a push by President Donald Trump from last April that urged the federal government to overhaul its environmental permitting process via technology, and to move away from pen-and-paper-based application review processes to reduce unnecessary project delays.
Dive Insight:
Trump has been vocal on permitting reform during his second term, and the push gained momentum following the Supreme Court’s May 2025 decision in a unanimous 8-0 ruling in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. The ruling curbed the scope of agencies’ NEPA reviews, according to law firm Vinson & Elkins.
“Going forward, the Court was clear that it expects many technical, scientific, and line-drawing decisions to fall to the discretion of the agency and not be second-guessed by courts,” attorneys for the firm wrote. “And the Court sought to put an end to the vicious cycle of risk-averse agencies resorting to ever extended review times and ever longer NEPA documents in an effort to survive judicial review.”
CE Works will provide federal agencies with a digital pathway to apply exemptions to thousands of CE determinations made across projects, per the release.
Caroline Sevier, managing director of government relations & infrastructure initiatives for the American Society of Civil Engineers, said the group is looking forward to seeing the results of the pilot. ASCE’s 2025 infrastructure report card highlighted using new technologies to develop infrastructure more efficiently and effectively as a key goal, Sevier said.
“We think that anytime that the federal government is able to leverage new technologies that are out there to expedite the federal permitting process, ensure we're maintaining that balance with the environment but still get critical infrastructure projects done is going to be a positive step forward,” Sevier told Construction Dive.
The CEQ issued its Permitting Technology Action Plan on May 30, which set minimum standards for federal agencies on aspects of the review process. These areas included data governance and use standards, automated project screening and comment compilation and automated case management tools.
To develop the tool, the CEQ partnered with the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, per the announcement. The council will also work with the Bureau of Land Management’s Moab Field Office for the launch of the pilot, with more agencies planned for collaboration in the future.
The federal government isn’t alone — on the state level, California has also sought to cut through red tape for housing and advanced manufacturing projects.
In June, the state rolled back provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, the state’s bedrock environmental law. With the changes, certain types of projects are now exempt from formerly required reviews. Aside from housing and advanced manufacturing, projects such as high speed rail, agricultural employee housing and certain wildfire risk reduction efforts qualify for the rollback.
