Interior Department ordered to fast-track coal projects by sidestepping environmental review
H.R. 4068 — Streamlining NEPA for Coal Act · Filed by Mike Collins (R-GA) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jun 23, 2025 · Hearing held
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What it does
This bill directs the Interior Secretary to identify existing and potential categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that could be used to fast-track coal production and export projects by bypassing environmental review. The Secretary must report these exclusions to Congress within 30 days, effectively creating a roadmap for federal agencies to approve coal projects with minimal environmental scrutiny.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to identify and promote categorical exclusions that bypass environmental review specifically for coal projects. This is functionally a deregulation measure disguised as a procedural directive—it does not ban or restrict coal, but rather creates a pathway to exempt coal development from the environmental scrutiny that NEPA was designed to provide.
What the text implies
- The bill does not mandate use of identified exclusions but creates a federal roadmap that other agencies can follow, effectively normalizing and legitimizing circumvention of NEPA review for coal projects without explicit legislative authorization to do so.
- By framing coal acceleration as a policy goal within a NEPA directive, the bill redefines the purpose of categorical exclusions from narrow, genuinely low-impact activities to a sector-specific fast-track mechanism, potentially inviting legal challenge and setting precedent for similar carve-outs in other industries.
- The 30-day reporting requirement creates political pressure on the Secretary to deliver a favorable list, and the report itself becomes a legislative artifact that can be cited by agencies and courts as evidence of congressional intent to prioritize coal over environmental review.
- Citizens and environmental groups lose standing to challenge coal projects approved under identified exclusions, since categorical exclusions are exempt from NEPA's public comment and environmental assessment requirements—effectively privatizing the permitting process for coal.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens lose environmental protections and public participation rights. NEPA categorical exclusions bypass mandatory environmental impact assessments and public comment periods. By identifying exclusions specifically designed to accelerate coal projects, the bill reduces transparency and citizen input on projects affecting air quality, water, climate, and local communities—disproportionately harming residents near coal mines and export terminals.
Who stands to gain
- coal mining companies
- coal export terminal operators
- coal-fired power plant operators
- coal transportation and logistics firms
Named in the bill
Secretary of the Interior, House Committee on Natural Resources, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), categorical exclusions, coal production and export
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Jun 23, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 23, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
- Sep 3, 2025 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Hearings Held”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $820,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 67 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Collins, the sponsor, reported $554,500 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Mining Association — $820,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (730 characters) on Jul 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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