September 29, 2023 To: Council on Environmental Quality

With respect to climate change mitigation and resilience, for instance, the Proposed Rule would amend the definition of “effects” that agencies must consider under NEPA to expressly “include climate change-related effects, including the contribution of a proposed action and its alternatives to climate change, and the reasonably foreseeable effects of climate change on the 4 Proposed Rule, 88 Fed. [...] We offer the following language for consideration (note: throughout this letter, proposed insertions are in red and proposed deletions are in blue): Add to § 1502.16(a)(1): Analysis of the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of the proposed action and reasonable alternatives, and their significance, should include, to the extent practicable, quantification of those effects and contextuali. [...] For purposes of complying with the Act, agencies need not display the weighing of the merits and drawbacks of the various alternatives in a monetary cost- [hereinafter DRAFT CIRCULAR A-4 UPDATE] (“When it is not possible to quantify or monetize all of the important benefits and costs of a regulation, the most advantageous policy will not necessarily be the one with the largest quantified and monet. [...] CEQ Should Amend Section 1505.2 to Require Explanation When an Agency Chooses Not to Adopt the Environmentally Preferable Alternative The Proposed Rule takes the important step of requiring agencies to identify the environmentally preferable alternative as part of the environmental impact statement (which is subject to public comment) and not merely in the record of decision (which is not).56 The. [...] This would help reinforce the primary purpose of identifying the environmentally preferable alternative in the first place—and the purpose of NEPA more generally—which seeks to ensure that the agency “consider[s] whether the decision accords with the Congressionally declared policies of [NEPA]”59 and “focus[es] attention on” promoting “better environmental decisionmaking.”60 For consideration, we.