During an NCBA podcast following the Trump administration's announcement, Nevada rancher J.J. Goicoechea said the current NEPA process has harmed producers wanting to improve water resources in dry regions of the country.

"If there's a drought in Nevada, ranchers need to haul water or develop water sources for wildlife," he said, "they are often held up with NEPA -- some are held up three to five years. If it's an emergency situation and you don't have a drought environmental assessment that was done in that grazing district, you might not be able to haul water to your livestock and you'll be forced to bring them home."

NEPA was created in 1970 to require federal agencies to evaluate the environmental effects of federal actions.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said during a press call on Thursday the current situation has created some tough scenarios for landowners.

"When I arrived at the Department of the Interior in 2017, it took, on average, five years to complete environmental reviews for our projects within BLM (Bureau of Land Management)," he said. "And we have some that are out to 15 and 16 years. And these documents were often hundreds and even thousands of pages long.

"A rancher's ability to know whether they will be able to graze their livestock on public lands depends on the timing of our environmental reviews. A farmer's ability to know that they have a secure water supply for their crops is based on how long it takes for us to do our environmental reviews."

Dan Keppen, executive director of the Family Farm Alliance, said in a press statement the group was reviewing the proposal "with an eye towards seeing how it corrects and re-balances the significant negative impacts to our Western farmers that have resulted from past federal implementation of NEPA and other environmental laws."

Even before the actual proposal was released environmental groups expressed opposition to the changes. Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. said the proposal would "punch loopholes" into environmental protections under NEPA.

"The Trump administration has a legal and moral duty to protect all Americans, especially our children, from climate pollution and industrial environmental threats," she said in a statement. "This unlawful and dangerous action takes our country in the wrong direction."

The Center for Biological Diversity said in a news release days before the release of the proposal that changes would allow federal agencies to ignore whether a project's greenhouse gas emissions would worsen climate change.

In addition, the group said the proposal would eliminate consideration of the cumulative effects of damage to public lands and wildlife from fossil fuel extraction.

"It's shameful that the Trump administration is ripping apart America's cornerstone environmental law on its 50th anniversary," Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

"Trump's gift to the fossil fuel industry and special interests will silence ordinary Americans while giving polluters a free pass to trash the environment, destroy public lands and kill wildlife."

During a press briefing on Thursday, however, Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Mary Neumayr said the proposed rule would "not exclude consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in NEPA analyses."

Read the NEPA proposal here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/…

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

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