Making Reviews Certain Act

Tighter review rules for energy projects

If enacted, the bill would narrow which environmental impacts agencies must study. Agencies would only need to study effects that share a close causal link and are proximately caused by the immediate project. The bill would define "energy infrastructure" to include facilities and equipment used to find, produce, process, transport, transmit, refine, and generate energy. For covered energy projects, the bill would limit court challenges. Claims generally would have to be filed within 180 days of a final agency action. If the action had a public comment period, challengers generally would need to have submitted a substantive, unique, and detailed comment by the deadline and to show direct harm. The bill would bar challenges to establishing categorical exclusions. Courts would be discouraged from vacating final actions; instead courts could remand for fixes and give agencies 180 days to correct errors, and projects could continue during that remand unless the court finds a substantial proximate environmental harm and no other remedy is available. The bill would also preserve the right to seek review under section 107(g)(3).