H.R. 4776 · Passed House · Environmental Protection

SPEED Act

Sponsor: Bruce Westerman (R-AR)

What it does

• Narrows the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act to reduce the number of federal actions that trigger review and to speed the review process.
• Redefines major federal actions, including barring an agency from treating an action as major solely because it receives federal funds.
• Exempts from NEPA review actions already reviewed under another federal, state, or tribal environmental statute that meets NEPA's requirements.
• Limits agencies to considering effects proximately caused by the immediate action, excluding effects that are speculative, attenuated, or separate in time or place.
• Requires environmental assessments only for actions not likely to have a reasonably foreseeable significant effect on the human environment.

Official summary

Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act or the SPEED Act This bill limits the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and modifies the environmental review of major federal actions under NEPA to generally limit the number of federal actions that trigger NEPA review and to expedite the review process. For example, the bill redefines major federal actions , including to specify that an agency may not determine that an action is a major federal action based solely on the provision of federal funds. It also excludes from the requirement for NEPA review certain proposed agency actions that have already been reviewed under another federal, state, or tribal environmental review statute that meets the requirements of NEPA. The bill directs an agency, when preparing an environmental document for a proposed agency action, to consider only those effects proximately caused by the immediate project or action under consideration. Agencies may not consider effects that are speculative, attenuated from the project or action, separate in time or place from the project or action, or in relation to separate projects or actions. The bill modifies the…

Latest action

Dec 18, 2025: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Committee: Senate Environment and Public Works