White House Requires Federal Agencies to Consider Climate Change Impacts of Their Actions

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is urging all federal agencies that license, permit or finance energy and infrastructure project to consider potential environmental impacts of the project before making their decision, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).

In order to help federal agencies in considering potential climate change impact of their action, CEQ has released a final guidance document. Under the final guidance, federal agencies will not only consider climate change in their decision, but will also quantify the climate impacts of their actions. The guideline also requires agencies to consider alternatives that would make the action and affected communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.

"From the public standpoint, we are now going to know what all of our decisions add up to in terms of impacting climate change," said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality, in a report from Washington Post. "You can think of all the different federal decisions, and how they all add up. We have numbers where we can actually say, 'this is a huge decision, given the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of it.'

As requested by the Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, the final guidance will ensure that projects and investments include adequate and coordinated consideration of the project design or alternatives in relation to climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid unacceptable public health, safety and financial risks for communities.

NEPA is an environmental law in the United States that is referred to as the "environmental Magna Carta." It was enacted on January 1, 1970 under the Nixon administration. The law requires executive federal agencies to prepare Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statement. However, NEPA does not apply to the President, Congress or the federal courts.

In 2015, federal agencies submitted 563 Environmental Impact Statement.