DOE seeks input on how Department stakeholders may engage with the Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI) directly, and how the Department may engage with the FESI and the communities it will serve.

The Federal Highway Administration received, reviewed, and issued a determination of complete, for a renewal package from the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities requesting renewed participation in the Surface Transportation Project Delivery Program, which allows the Administration to assign, and states to assume, responsibilities under NEPA, and all or part of the Administration’s responsibilities for environmental review, consultation, or other actions required under any federal environmental law with respect to one or more federal highway projects within the state. 

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposed reforms to its renewable energy program, including proposals for incremental funding of decommissioning accounts; more flexible geophysical and geotechnical survey submission requirements; streamlined approval of meteorological buoys; revised project verification procedures; reform of the Bureau’s renewable energy auction process; and greater clarity regarding safety requirements.

FERC proposed to revise its existing regulations governing applications for permits to site electric transmission facilities under §216 of the Federal Power Act, as amended by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.

CEQ issued interim guidance to assist agencies in analyzing greenhouse gas and climate change effects of their proposed actions under NEPA.

EPA announced a public comment period for the draft document titled, “Biofuels and the Environment: Third Triennial Report to Congress (External Review Draft).”

EPA proposed applicable volumes and percentage standards for 2023 through 2025 for cellulosic biofuel, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel; a second supplemental standard addressing the remand of the 2016 standard-setting rulemaking; and several regulatory changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard program, including regulations governing the generation of qualifying renewable electricity and other modifications intended to improve the program's implementation.

DOE published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking to establish revised energy performance standards for the construction of new federal buildings, including commercial buildings, multifamily high-rise residential buildings, and low-rise residential buildings per the Energy Conservation and Production Act, as amended by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service announced that it intends to issue a series of revised conservation practice standards in the National Handbook of Conservation Practices, and notified the public of the opportunity to provide comments on specified conservation practice standards in the handbook.

EPA determined that renewable diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, naphtha, and liquefied petroleum gas produced from canola/rapeseed oil via a hydrotreating process all meet the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions reduction threshold of 50% required for advanced biofuels and biomass-based diesel under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, added these pathways to the list of approved pathways in the RFS regulations, and added a new definition of “canola/rapeseed oil” to the RFS regulations.