The Surface Transportation Board (STB) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on March 25, 2026, proposing to significantly revise its regulations governing environmental review for the first time in more than 30 years. The proposed regulations, if enacted, would streamline the STB’s environmental reviews, reducing or eliminating procedures in some cases and making it more difficult to object to Board action based on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The NPRM proposes doing so through multiple means, including, first, by limiting the scope of environmental review. It would define “effects or impacts” of Board actions to mean “changes . . . that are reasonably foreseeable and have a reasonably close causal relationship to the proposed action or alternatives.” The Board would only be required to consider effects meeting that definition. The Board would not consider effects that are remote in time, are geographically remote, are the product of a lengthy causal chain, are outside the agency’s ability to prevent, or arise from independent third-party actions. For rail line construction, the Board would not require consideration of impacts from new traffic on existing lines.
Second, the NPRM proposes listing new actions entitled to bypass lengthier procedures. For example, railbanking, declaratory orders, and actions related to modified certificates would not require environmental review. Offers of Financial Assistance, reciprocal switching orders, proceedings related to Amtrak, the construction of connecting track within an existing right of way, and abandonments and discontinuances that will not cause traffic diversions or pre-abandonment salvage would be entitled to categorical exclusions.
Third, the NPRM would introduce page limits and preparation deadlines: 75 pages and one year for environmental assessments (EAs), and 150 pages (or 300 pages in extraordinarily complex cases) and two years for environmental impact statements (EISs). In accordance with amendments to NEPA enacted in 2025, both deadlines could be made half as long if the applicant pays a fee of 125% of the Board’s costs. The NPRM also proposes making the use of draft documents optional and reducing EA scoping obligations.
Other proposed changes in the NPRM include adding a new process for coordinating among multiple agencies, adding procedures for applicants to request the use of applicant-prepared EAs and EISs, adding procedures for emergency environmental review, and delegating the Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis additional authority.
The NPRM responds to recent legal changes intended to reduce the burden of environmental reviews under NEPA, including an executive order, a Council on Environmental Quality interim final rule, amendments to NEPA enacted in 2023 and 2025, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, 605 U.S. 168 (2025). The NPRM is available at 91 Fed. Reg. 14490 (Mar. 25, 2026) and the new regulations will be published in 49 CFR Part 1105 (principally), with a few additional revisions in Part 1011.
Comments on the NPRM are due April 24, 2026.
If you have questions or would like assistance in preparing comments, please contact Allison Ishihara Fultz, Ayelet Hirschkorn, John Putnam, Subash Iyer, Chuck Spitulnik, Christian Alexander, Casey Morris, or Grant Glovin.