"President Donald Trump is scrapping decades of work on permitting policies. He hasn’t named anyone to lead the office behind it."

"President Donald Trump in recent days has relied on a White House policy shop — the Council on Environmental Quality — to take a sledgehammer to what’s known as the “Magna Carta” of environmental laws.

The Nixon-era office swiftly moved to scrap almost five decades’ worth of its own environmental rules aimed at implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, handing the job off to hundreds of federal agencies.

At the center of that contentious policy shift is a looming vacancy, one that conservatives say should quickly be filled by someone who wants to aggressively promote Trump’s plans to boost energy production and speed up the federal permitting process."

Hannah Northey and Robin Bravender report for E&E News February 21, 2025. [2]