Commonsense Review Act

The Commonsense Review Act establishes an interagency group focused on streamlining environmental reviews by aligning and establishing categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This group includes the Secretaries of Energy (chair), Interior, and Agriculture, along with members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Within 360 days, each member agency must adopt existing categorical exclusions from other members' NEPA procedures where appropriate, ensuring interagency consistency. Furthermore, the group is mandated to jointly establish new categorical exclusions specifically for actions related to interstate electric energy transmission and battery energy storage projects , provided these actions do not significantly affect the human environment. Upon completion of these tasks, the interagency group must submit a comprehensive report to Congress. This report will detail all adopted or established categorical exclusions, explain any instances where exclusions were not adopted, and provide recommendations for future interagency collaboration and potential statutory categorical exclusions. The group is designed to be temporary, dissolving after the submission of its final report to Congress.