H.R. 573 — Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act

This section revises Section 201 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) to establish annual reporting requirements, beginning July 1, 2026, on NEPA's impact on projects. It requires the head of each lead agency to submit to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) a report covering (1) civil actions alleging NEPA violations active from June 1 of the preceding year to June 1 of the current year, including defendants, plaintiffs, courts, counts by agency, bases by covered sectors, outcomes (e.g., set aside under 5 U.S.C. §706(2), remand without vacatur, settlement, ongoing, awards of costs under 28 U.S.C. §2412), and late information in the next report; (2) lengths of environmental impact statements (EISs) publicly available in the prior five years, including average and median page counts (main text by quartiles, citations/appendices separately), counts by agency, trends versus prior CEQ reports, and disaggregation pre- and post-Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 through 2028; (3) estimated preparation costs for those EISs, including lead agency full-time equivalent hours, contractor costs, and other direct costs, plus practicable costs for cooperating agencies, participating agencies, project sponsors, and contractors; and (4) EIS completion timelines for major federal actions in the prior 10 years, including milestone dates (e.g., application, scoping, notice of intent, EIS availability, record of decision, notice to proceed), average and median timelines, trends versus prior CEQ reports, and disaggregation pre- and post-Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 through 2033. CEQ must annually publish the reports and underlying data on its website and submit them to the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (potentially included in its report under NEPA §107(h)). (NEPA generally requires EISs for major federal actions significantly affecting the environment; these reports track litigation, document length and cost, and processing times to assess implementation efficiency.)