The environmental review procedure that every federally assisted highway, transit and rail project runs through was finalized on September 1 and took effect the same day. No delayed compliance date.
The Federal Highway Administration, Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration jointly published a final NEPA rule adopting an interim final rule from July 3, 2025 with what the agencies call minor technical changes. It amends 23 CFR Part 771 for FHWA, 49 CFR Part 264 for FRA and 49 CFR Part 622 for FTA. Docket number is FHWA-2025-0007, and the rule runs 21 Federal Register pages under three separate regulatory identification numbers.
Why one rule needed three RINs
The agencies name four drivers in their own abstract: the removal of the Council on Environmental Quality’s government-wide regulations, the NEPA amendments in the BUILDER Act of 2023 carried in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the efficient-review provisions of the 2021 infrastructure law, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition.
The practical consequence is structural. For decades, agency NEPA procedures sat on top of a single CEQ framework, and a project team reconciling FHWA and FTA requirements could work from a shared baseline. That baseline is gone. Each modal administration now carries its own procedures, and the three-RIN structure of this rule is DOT’s attempt to keep them aligned by writing them at the same time.
What to do about it this week
For a multimodal project, a grade separation with both highway and transit funding, a station with rail and roadway elements, the review track now depends on which administration’s money you’re spending, and the answer needs to come out of the modal rule rather than a CEQ crosswalk. Design teams carrying environmental documents through the fall should confirm which version of Part 771 their consultant is working from.
The specific categorical exclusions, document page limits and class-of-action changes are not enumerated in the abstract, and anyone whose schedule depends on them should read the rule text rather than the summary. Two same-day companion notices are worth flagging as context: the Department of Homeland Security and the Army each published Section 109 categorical-exclusion adoption notices in the same issue, which is what the post-CEQ world looks like in practice. Agencies are now adopting each other’s exclusions one notice at a time.
Related on Exchange: the Albeni Falls Dam gate replacement.
Sources: Federal Register, September 1, 2026; Docket FHWA-2025-0007.