National Environmental Policy Act

Document 2026-06537 is a Final Rule published by the Department of Agriculture in the Federal Register on April 3, 2026, with an effective date of April 3, 2026. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is adopting the interim final rule (IFR) published on July 3, 2025, with minor changes, as final. The IFR revised departmental regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and removed various USDA agency regulations for implementing NEPA. The IFR was in response to the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) rescission of its NEPA implementing regulations (which USDA's NEPA regulations were designed to supplement), statutory changes to NEPA, executive orders, and case law. In the IFR, USDA provided a 30-day comment period for the public to review and make comments. This final rule addresses public comments and adopts as final the IFR, with certain substantive changes as explained herein. View the original at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/03/2026-06537/national-environmental-policy-act.

No. Document 2026-06537 is not classified as economically significant under Executive Order 12866. Economically significant rules require OIRA review and are estimated to have impacts of $100 million or more per year.