The House votes to pass the SPEED Act

WASHINGTON D.C. — Taking an axe to what remains of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the House voted to pass the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act (H.R. 4776). The bill, also known as the SPEED Act, proposes the most sweeping rollbacks to NEPA since the bedrock law was enacted in 1970. 

Ronni Flannery, senior staff attorney at The Wilderness Society, made the following statement about the vote: 

“Once again, this Congress has shown it has little regard for the voices of our communities or for the burden it’s placing on future generations. This is yet another attempt to sell off our shared public lands and resources to the highest bidder behind closed doors, all while stripping away the very tools communities rely on to hold the government accountable. 

The whole point of NEPA is to support informed decision-making to improve environmental outcomes. Most, if not all, of the SPEED legislation undermines that essential purpose to the detriment of all.” 

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Introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R–Ark.) and Rep. Jared Golden (D–Maine), the SPEED Act is promoted as a permitting-reform measure but instead accelerates extractive federal development projects at the expense of communities and the environmental review process by reducing opportunities for public input, weakening the requirement that the ‘best available science’ inform government decisions and severely limiting oversight from the courts.  

The bill makes it easier and faster to clearcut national forests, expand a defunct uranium mine, overgraze public lands, or construct pipelines with little to no review, prioritizing short-term profits for project sponsors. Thanks to these efforts to kneecap NEPA, future generations will inherit more pollution and environmental damage and have fewer chances to shape and challenge the decisions that affect their communities. 

Contact: gaby_diaz@tws.org