The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires US federal agencies to assess environmental effects of potential actions, such as building highways. While many NEPA reviews require public comment, categorical exclusions (CEs) allow quick reviews with no public comment for actions that will minimally affect the environment. In 2020 the rule governing CEs was revised: before, CEs could be granted for actions that “do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment,” but the revised rule allowed CEs if actions “normally do not have a significant effect on the human environment.” Environmentalists found this revision to be potentially detrimental because _____
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. the increasing need to build new highways and rehabilitate older highways in the US incentivizes agencies to grant CEs after 2020 for reasons that would not have been considered valid prior to 2020.
B. the 2020 relaxation of the rule regarding CEs would permit more exclusions, resulting in more reviews of actions by federal agencies and a paradoxically slower review process.
C. the rule that governed CEs before 2020 allowed expedited reviews of actions that might have significant effects on the environment if those effects were believed to be rare, while the 2020 revision of the rule subjected such actions to slower reviews.
D. the 2020 revision of the rule governing CEs would allow expedited reviews of actions that had a minimal environmental effect when considered on their own but a significant effect when considered together.
(Cre: College Board)
